The Tomorrow We Fight For
by Marika
Summary: Crossover between Gundam Wing and the Tomorrow People (NS) - the TP are sent to the Gundam universe
1. First Impressions

"Would someone please explain to me what we're doing here out in the middle of nowhere?" Duo demanded over the group's encoded transmission. "I mean, we've done some hanging out in some pretty remote places, but there was always a base or a set of railroad tracks or something. This is really the middle of nowhere."  
  
"Their scientists have developed some sort of machine that may be capable of opening up portals between our world and others," Quatre said calmly over the speaker. Apparently his briefing had included information not available to the others. "But they don't know if it will work, or just create a huge explosion," there was disapproval in his voice. "So they brought it out here to test it."  
  
"So if it does blow up, it'll just take them out. And us too, now. This was a great idea," Duo remarked sarcastically.   
  
"02, shut up," Heero said over the comm. He was providing a visual feed of the clearing where the Ozzies were going to hold their experiment. The rest of them were hiding in the forest around the clearing, far enough back that they couldn't be seen, but that also meant that they couldn't see anything. Heero had solved the problem by hovering nearly a thousand feet above the ground, so that Wing was merely a black spot in the sky to those looking from below. But they were not as invisible to him - he had a powerful camera aimed precisely at the clearing, and was sending that image to the two Gundams hiding in the forest.   
  
"How did I get lucky enough to be sent on this mission?" Duo muttered to himself, momentarily shutting off the comm. so that Heero wouldn't yell at him again. Trowa and Wufei had remained back at one of the safe-houses, and right now Duo would have given a lot to switch places with either one of them. Even being stuck in the house with justice-is-my-life Wufei would have been preferable to sitting here in Deathscythe for close to twelve hours because the stupid convoy got stuck in a mudhole or something. Duo had almost been ready to help them out himself, just so they could get to the test site so he could destroy it.  
  
He watched as the Ozzies unloaded a large machine from the back of a truck and set it on the ground. The truck drove a few feet away, and the soldiers backed up a couple of feet, leaving only a couple of men in lab coats standing next to the machine.   
  
"Finally," Duo muttered, automatically doing a quick check of Deathscythe's systems, to make sure everything was as ready as it had been when he settled down here eight hours ago. It was. Now maybe they could get this stupid mission finished with and he could go get some sleep in an actual bed.  
  
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"Adam, this is getting ridiculous," Megabyte complained as he stared at the chess board in front of him. "Why do I let you talk me into playing this stupid game?"  
  
"Because it's fun and challenging," Adam replied, a small smile playing around the corners of his lips. "Checkmate."  
  
Megabyte groaned, and Ami smiled, looking up from the book she was reading. "I think you're just a glutton for punishment. You'd think after all this time you'd learn not to play him. He always wins."  
  
"Yeah, but think how cool it would be if I ever won," Megabyte replied, his tone sarcastic. "I think everyone will just faint from shock. Including me."  
  
"Can you keep it down over there?" Jade complained from where she was lying on the floor, looking at some books. "My mum only let me come out here because I promised I'd get my homework done. I can't concentrate with all that noise."  
  
"Well, maybe you should have finished your homework before you came out here then," Megabyte shot back.   
  
"Megabyte, take it easy. Come on, we'll go to the surface, the sunsets here are great," Adam said, then there was a bright flash of light and a loud crackling sound as he vanished.   
  
Megabyte looked at Jade, weighing the fun of continuing to tease her against the trouble he'd get in with Ami and Adam, and regretfully decided that it wasn't worth it. Especially since he knew that Jade's mother really would follow up on her threat if Jade didn't finish her homework, and it wasn't as much fun to tease Jade unless she was here, where he could see her expression.   
  
Sighing in disappointment, he teleported to the surface to join Adam. 'Here' was a small island somewhere in the south Pacific, or, more accurately, the spaceship that was halfway buried in the sand of the island. When he appeared on the sandy beach, Adam was already walking in the opposite direction, his eyes fixed on the sunset across the ocean. Megabyte ran a few steps to catch up with him.   
  
"Cool, huh?" For once Adam's Australian accent wasn't as apparent in his speech. Of course, he didn't usually use the word 'cool', either. He's been hanging out with me too much, Megabyte thought, amused.  
  
"What? I'm not allowed to talk like an American every now and then?" Adam responded directly to his thought with a grin.  
  
:Stop looking in my head,: he growled telepathically, and Adam laughed.   
  
Megabyte looked at the distant sunset. It was fairly spectacular, he had to admit. You couldn't see sunsets like this back in Vermont, or any place that was well populated. It was only when you could see forever like this that you could really get a good look at the sunset. He should know - ever since he'd become a Tomorrow Person, he'd traveled all over the world on a fairly regular basis. Why not? When Paris or Hawaii or any other place was just a thought away, why wouldn't you visit those places whenever you had a few free minutes?  
  
Suddenly he felt a strange buzzing in the back of his head and frowned. He turned to look at Adam, who had one hand pressed up against his forehead, his face creased in pain. Suddenly his eyes opened wide, and then he disappeared in a burst of light. Megabyte stared blankly at the spot his friend had just occupied. So he'd teleported. Nothing special about that - they all did it several times a day. But he was under the impression that this time it hadn't been Adam's idea.  
  
That's impossible. It has to be his idea. Who's idea would it be? It can't... his thought was cut off as the buzzing suddenly intensified and he also teleported. Or maybe it can...  
  
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Quatre watched in fascination as little electric sparks began to run across the top of the machine, whatever it was. He wondered whether or not it was supposed to do that. He also was quite impressed by the level of resolution that they were getting, considering the distances involved and difficulties involved with holding a camera that steady. The electrical sparks got larger, jumping into the air around the machine. They seemed to be concentrating on four different points in the air, for some reason. He stared as the electric sparks abandoned the machine entirely and focused in on those four points.   
  
He checked the Oz soldiers - the soldiers themselves were watching the electrical anomaly with no small amount of suspicion and fear, but the scientists didn't seem upset, so maybe this was supposed to happen. He returned his attention to the machine and the sparks. Their orders were clear - if it worked, they were supposed to steal the machine, if it didn't work and didn't blow itself up, they were supposed to finish the job. Right now all it was doing was creating a very interesting light show, but nothing more.  
  
That assumption was suddenly dashed when the light at the four points increased in a blinding flash. When the flash cleared, there were four kids standing in the center of the clearing, where the electrical disturbances had been before.   
  
It was hard to say who was more surprised: the soldiers, the scientists, the Gundam pilots... or the kids themselves. Quatre saw surprise on all of their faces before the expression gave way to naked fear as the four of them drew closer together. Kids. It was weird that he was thinking of them that way, since only one of them was actually younger than he was - the blond girl - and two of them were definitely older. The black girl looked like she was about eighteen, and the blond boy was a year or two older than that. The red-haired kid looked like he was about the same age - physically - as the Gundam pilots, but whereas all of the Gundam pilots had a certain hardness to them, darkness in their eyes, all of these kids looked pathetically innocent, with clear eyes that spoke worlds to the universe at large. Innocence personified. The words ran through his head before he even realized what was going on.   
  
Then he saw the oldest boy grab the arm of the youngest girl and give the younger boy a shove. As one, all four of the kids started running. Quatre turned on his comm. "New mission parameters. We've got to get those kids. We can't let Oz catch them, they might actually be from another world. Capture, not kill. Understood?"  
  
"Nimou ryoukai," Heero grunted.   
  
"01, stay where you are, we need the visual feed," Quatre told him as he heard Duo cursing in the background. Quatre knew exactly what he was talking about. Gundams were good at a large number of things, but capturing individual people was not one of them. It was exceedingly difficult to capture a person without doing them serious damage in a suit this size, but they were going to have to manage. Letting Oz capture them was not an option, and the fact that they'd been pulled from wherever they'd come from was not a good enough reason to kill them.   
  
He checked the video feed. If his interpretation of this was correct, they were headed straight for him, but first they had to get beyond a half-dozen Oz soldiers. As he watched, the soldiers moved to cut them off...  
  
The four kids stumbled to a stop, then the oldest boy gave his companions a shove and put himself between them and the soldiers who were chasing him. As his three companions disappeared into the woods, moving directly towards Quatre, the older boy suddenly threw himself at the soldiers. Startled by his sudden action, the soldiers actually let him break through their line. He dodged past the scientists and their machine and took off for the woods on the opposite side of the clearing.   
  
"02, you have one of them coming towards you," Quatre said. "I've got the other three. 01, wait for us to catch them, then move in and secure the machine."  
  
"Hai."   
  
"Got it," Duo said amidst his cursing.  
  
Quatre turned his attention to his sensors. The three kids were still running towards him, followed by a half-dozen Oz soldiers. Suddenly the kids swerved sharply... trying to hide behind a tree, he guessed, shaking his head. The trees here might hide them from view for a few seconds, but then Oz would catch up with them. Then he'd have to rescue them from the soldiers. He started to move towards them, but hesitated when there was a brief flare of energy on his sensors, like a very small explosion. He blinked.   
  
They were gone.  
  
There was nowhere for them to go, no way that they should have been able to hide from his sensors, but they were indisputably gone. He watched the Oz soldiers mill around for a few seconds, then spoke, "Ah, guys? We have a problem..."  
  
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Adam froze as he reappeared in a forest somewhere. Never in all of his time as a Tomorrow Person had he ever teleported against his will. An instant later Megabyte appeared, followed by Jade and finally Ami. :What happened?: Jade asked, pressing in close behind Adam. He tried to put himself between her and the men surround them, but they were all around them. Trapped. He swallowed and tried not to panic. There were people who looked like scientists, and even more who looked like soldiers. Not again. But what were they doing out in the middle of the woods?  
  
:I don't know, but we've got to get out of here.:  
  
:Teleport?: Megabyte asked tensely.   
  
:No, I don't want to let them see us. Run for the woods, try to lose them, then teleport,: Adam instructed.   
  
:Hello? They just saw us teleport in! I think they did it,: Megabyte said as Adam took hold of Jade's arm.  
  
:Maybe, but they look as surprised as us. I don't think they knew what they were doing, and they don't know what's going on now. Let's not let them see us if we can help it, but don't let them catch you. Got it? If we have to split up, we meet back on the island.: He could feel their silent agreement. :Go!: He pulled at Jade's arm and gave Megabyte a push as he started running.   
  
The other three followed him as he ran for the nearest edge of the forest, hoping that he was doing the right thing and wasn't about to get them all shot. He heard shouts as the soldiers, whoever they were, started to give chase. He saw another group coming in from the side and judged that they weren't going to make it to the woods. He skidded to a stop, releasing Jade's arm. :Keep going!: he said as forcefully as he could. :I'll be fine!: He saw Ami grab Jade's upper arm to keep her moving, but the older girl spared him a glance as they continued running.   
  
:If you get caught I'm going to kill you,: Megabyte told him as they disappeared into the trees.   
  
The soldiers who'd been about to catch them hesitated, torn between catching the three who'd escaped or the one who was standing there, waiting for them like an idiot. He hesitated just long enough to make sure they'd follow him, then spun around and headed directly for the soldiers who'd been chasing him, praying that he'd caught them by surprise. He got lucky - they were so startled that he'd run at them that he was through them and headed for the forest on the other side of the clearing. He ran past the startled scientists and the large metal thing that they were standing next to, not daring to look behind him. He could hear the soldiers to know that they were too close - he had to lose them before he could teleport.  
  
Adam kept running, slowly gaining on the soldiers. Then there was the crack of gunfire and he instinctively ducked his head, his entire body tensing in anticipation of the pain, but there was nothing. They missed. Was that on purpose? he wondered. He risked a glance behind him, and saw close to a dozen soldiers chasing him. He dodged to put a tree behind him, between him and them, and turned his head back.  
  
Once more he skidded to a stop, eyes wide, and just barely managed not to run into the foot of a monster. No, not a monster, just a huge robot of some sort. It stretched upwards, several stories tall, and the aura around it almost made him sick. Death. It feels like death, he thought desperately, stumbling backwards several feet. Then it's head turned to look at him, green eyes glowing. He heard the soldiers still searching for him, but couldn't bring himself to move, frozen in terror.   
  
Then one of it's hands moved, slowly reaching for him, and he realized that it was going to grab him. Instinct took over where rational thought failed, and he teleported to safety.  
  
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Duo was not looking forward to what was coming. Gundams were not made to pick people up in their hands. Not without crushing the life out of their bodies, anyway. Duo had been amazed at the confidence and trust Quatre had shown in him when they first met, when he stepped into Deathscythe's open hand. He'd come out of it unscathed, but there was a large difference between having someone step onto an open palm than trying to grab someone who probably didn't want to be grabbed.   
  
He watched, first on his sensors, then on visual pickups as the boy ran through the forest. Boy... ha! The 'boy' was probably several years older than him. It was the fact that he obviously was unprepared for fighting that led to Duo's automatic classification of him as 'boy'. The boy ducked his head slightly as one of the Ozzies opened fire, but didn't stop running. Duo would have been impressed with his guts, except that he didn't know if the boy kept running because of courage or terror. He turned his head to look at the soldiers behind him... and almost ran into Deathscythe.   
  
Duo zoomed in with his camera to get a good look at the boy. Nineteen or twenty, at an estimate, with light hair and dark eyes, in decent shape, if the speed and distance that he'd run was any indicator. The boy's eyes widened, first in shock, then in outright terror. He stumbled backwards several feet, still staring at the Gundam. "Sorry, kid, but this is for your own good," Duo muttered as he started to carefully reach for the boy.  
  
If anything, the boy's eyes got even wider as the Gundam began to move. Duo had almost reached him with one huge hand when a sphere of light appeared around the boy, which then rapidly shrunk down to nothing. The boy was gone.  
  
"What the fuck..." Duo muttered, checking his scanners. No, his eyes hadn't fooled him, the boy really was gone.   
  
"02, do you have the last one? I've lost the other three," Quatre's voice came across the comm., sounding apologetic.   
  
"Ah, no, I lost him."  
  
"How?" There was no condemnation in Quatre's voice, just honest curiosity.  
  
"You're not going to believe me, but... he just disappeared!"  
  
There was silence. Finally Quatre said brightly, "We can talk about this later. 01, complete original objective, 02 extract."  
  
Duo heard several startled shouts as the soldiers who'd been chasing the boy saw Deathscythe. A couple of them opened fire, but the bullets bounced harmlessly off of the gundanium plating before the soldiers turned and ran. Duo smirked to himself and let them go. Heero would destroy their transport on his way out. At best, it would take them weeks to get out of this stupid forest, at worst... well, it wasn't winter yet, but it wasn't exactly warm at night, either. And this forest was near some sort of natural game preserve, if he remembered correctly.   
  
"Got it, 04," he replied. He knew that Quatre probably thought he was crazy, and while that might be true, he hadn't imagined this. Hopefully the visual records would back up what he thought he'd seen, or else it might be time for him to hang up his scythe. Nah!  
  
Using the thrusters, he carefully maneuvered Deathscythe out of the trees, then took off towards the field where they'd stored the transport, a few miles away. At least he'd be able to get out of the cockpit for a while.   
  
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Normally Adam was very good at teleporting. His reaction time was the fastest of any of them, a fact for which Megabyte was always teasing him, but this time he hadn't been thinking about what he was doing - he'd been reacting on a purely instinctive level to protect himself, and when you didn't visualize where you wanted to go, you always ended up in the same place - the same place you ended up the first time you teleported. The ocean, a few hundred feet off the coast of his island.  
  
Adam landed in the ocean with a splash, then kicked to the surface, spitting out the salt water. On the shore he could see the other three, and breathed a sigh of relief, then began swimming in. The shock of hitting the water had also driven the unreasoning terror from his mind, and for that he was grateful.  
  
:Getting a little sloppy?: Megabyte asked as he staggered out of the water.  
  
"Megabyte," Adam said warningly, trying to wring out his shirt.  
  
"Adam, we have a problem," Ami said nervously, her hands clasped tightly in front of her. Her English accent was especially clear right now, for some reason.  
  
"What?" he asked warily. They hadn't even seen the huge robot-thing, so what could be wrong now?  
  
"We're not on our Earth."  
  
He blinked. "What?" he asked blankly. Automatically he looked at the spaceship at the other side of the island. It was there, but... he frowned. It looked the same way it had when he first saw it, all those years ago. He'd done some work, nothing major, but he'd dug out some of the normal entrances so that they didn't have to use the emergency escape hatch to get in and out anymore. There was no sign of any digging, and now that he looked around, he noticed that his tent, with all of his things, was missing.  
  
"We went inside the spaceship," Ami said unnecessarily, because Adam already knew where this was going. "None of our stuff is in there, and it's all dirty, like we were never there before. The ship was pleasantly surprised to see us, and very welcoming, but I get the distinct impression that it had never seen us before. So I think this is a different Earth. Either that or the past, but they had guns, so I don't know..."  
  
"No, you're right, it's a different Earth," Adam said, raking his hands through his wet hair. "I saw this... I don't know what it was. It looked like a huge robot. It tried to grab me, and I teleported. That's how I ended up out there," he added with a weak laugh, shivering in the slight wind that had started. It was fairly warm here, the way it always was, but even so, the wind seemed cold when you were soaking wet.   
  
Ami saw him shiver. "Come on, we'd better get inside, or you'll get sick!" she exclaimed, sounding very much like her mother for a moment. The caring, overly-worried part, not the part that yelled at her and was rude to the other Tomorrow People.   
  
Adam nodded and teleported directly to the inner chamber of the Ship. It was just as he remembered it being the first time he saw it, dirty with cobwebs in the corners, strangely alien and familiar at the same time. The column moaned at them when they appeared, and he placed a hand on it. "Nice to meet you, too," he murmured with a slight smile. He started to pull off his shirt, automatically turning to the corner where he stored blankets for when newcomers got dunked, then swore to himself when he realized that the blankets weren't there, for obvious reasons.  
  
Megabyte saw his action, and said, "Don't worry, I'll take care of it," then vanished before Adam could tell him otherwise.  
  
His lips tightened in annoyance, then he gave into the inevitable. He really did need some dry clothes. He glanced at Ami, who smiled slightly. "Don't worry," she said softly. "He can talk his way out of anything."  
  
"But only after he talks his way into more trouble than ten people could find if they were looking for it," Jade said acerbically. Adam looked down at the younger girl and laughed. As long as Megabyte and Jade were making fun of each other, things couldn't be that bad. On the other hand, they'd probably still be making fun of each other five minutes before the world ended, so it wasn't necessarily a good sign. "My mum's going to kill me, you know," she continued. "I was supposed to finish my homework, and I don't think she's going to buy the 'I was sucked into another dimension' explanation."  
  
"Her reaction's only going to be a little better than my mum's," Ami said, shaking her head, and both of her fellow Tomorrow People grimaced sympathetically. They knew that the reason that Ami's mom acted the way she did was entirely because she cared for her daughter, but that didn't make it any easier for any of them to take when they were on the wrong end of one of her lectures.  
  
A few seconds later Megabyte reappeared with a pair of jeans, several T-shirts, and a couple of blankets. There were still tags on most of them. "Do I want to know where you got these?" Adam asked.  
  
"Probably not. Do you know that they don't even use dollars here anymore?" Megabyte said in disgust. "Probably not pounds, either. Everything was listed in credits, whatever those are."  
  
Which meant that what money they did have with them was going to be useless. And Megabyte had stolen this clothing. Great. Adam sighed then pulled off the tags with his teeth before wrapping one of the purloined blankets around him.  
  
"And before you give me a lecture on ethics, I've already gone over all of that in my head," Megabyte hastened to tell him. "I know it's wrong to use our powers to steal, but it isn't like we have a lot of choice in the matter."  
  
"I know," Adam said with a sigh.   
  
"And I... You know?" Megabyte asked, astonished.   
  
"Yes. We don't have much of a choice, here. But if I ever find out that you've been doing this at home, I'm telling your father," Adam warned.  
  
"Sure!" Megabyte grinned. "I'm going to go get something to eat!"  
  
"Wait!" Adam cried before he could teleport again. "We need to talk first."  
  
"About what?"  
  
"Well, how about the gigantic robot I saw?"  
  
Megabyte's face fell, probably at the thought that he would have to delay his thievery. "Oh yeah. Hey, did anyone every notice how truly strange our lives have become? I mean, we spend all of our time thinking about aliens and dead pharos and killer mosquitoes."  
  
"I hadn't noticed. Actually, the only time I see anything weird is when you're around," Jade said primly, smiling when Megabyte's face turned as red as his hair.  
  
"Sure, whatever you say, kid," Megabyte said mildly, but with a malicious grin.  
  
"Don't call me kid!" Jade shouted.   
  
"All right, that's enough!" Ami said firmly, trying without complete success to hide her grin. "What did you see?" she asked Adam.  
  
"Here, link with me and I'll show you," Adam said, raising his hands. The others immediately got into place, also raising their hands so that they formed a complete circle. A ball of bluish light formed in the center of the circle as their minds linked. Adam put an image of the thing he'd seen in the front of his mind, where they were sure to see it.  
  
:Wow,: Jade said softly.  
  
:It looks sorta like a transformer,: Megabyte remarked after a stunned silence.  
  
:A what?: Ami asked.  
  
:These toys I played with when I was younger. They start out as a plane or something and they turn into these humanoid robots,: Megabyte exclaimed. :Except they weren't real, they were just toys.:  
  
:These are not toys,: Adam said firmly, lowering his hands and breaking the link. "It was trying to grab me."  
  
Jade shuddered. "Wouldn't it have crushed you?"  
  
"I don't know. And there was this aura around it..." he said, thinking back. As a rule, they had nearly perfect memories, although searching for a particular memory could take some time, especially if it was a long time ago. This time it was easy. "Death. It felt like death."  
  
"Evil?" Ami asked with a shudder of her own.  
  
"I don't know. It felt sort of like a gun, only moreso," he said, knowing they would understand what he meant. As Tomorrow People, they couldn't kill, to the point where even weapons made for killing became distasteful to them.   
  
There was a moment of silence, then Megabyte said brightly, "OK, so we have to stop by the public library somewhere and try to figure out where the hell we are and what that thing was. But first we have to get something to eat."  
  
"Just let me get changed first," Adam said, picking up the jeans and one of the T-shirts. As he started to walk into one of the other chambers, he asked, "You couldn't have stolen any underwear?"  
  
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"I'm telling you, I'm not crazy!" Duo's voice echoed through the entire house. A few seconds passed, then the door slammed. Trowa sighed. There went the peace and quite that had reigned for the last sixteen hours. He stood up and walked to the front room, where Duo was in the middle of a heated conversation with... well, he was very excited about something.  
  
"I never said you were crazy, Duo," Quatre said, holding his hands up.  
  
"But you're thinking it, aren't you? I'm telling you, I saw that kid disappear!"  
  
"Disappear?" Trowa asked, raising an eyebrow.   
  
"The mission went... well, not wrong exactly," Quatre said with a worried frown. "Heero is hiding the machine we stole..."  
  
"So it worked?" Wufei asked.  
  
"I'm not sure. They activated it, and four kids appeared. I mean, they *looked* human. Two boys and two girls. The youngest was a few years younger than us, and the oldest looked about twenty. They appeared out of thin air, took one look around them and ran. We lost them in the forest." There was a puzzled frown on his face when he said that.  
  
"You lost them?" Wufei asked doubtfully, his lips turning down in a frown. "They were on foot and you were in your Gundams and you lost them?"   
  
"I don't know how it happened," Quatre said with a shrug. "There were three of them running towards me, and suddenly they weren't on my scanners any more. The last one ran towards Duo, and he insists that he saw the boy disappear into thin air."   
  
"Look, just wait until Heero gets back and we can upload the recording from my Gundam," Duo said, crossing his arms. "There was a ball of light, and it shrunk, and he disappeared." He looked around at a set of skeptical faces. "Hey, it explains why they weren't on the scanners, doesn't it? And that's how they arrived, isn't it?"  
  
"Yes, but Oz did that..." Quatre said, then trailed off. He shrugged. "It could be. We don't really know what Oz did. But they looked very surprised when they arrived. I don't think it was their idea."  
  
"That doesn't mean they can't do it on their own," Duo argued. He looked at the door. "How long until Heero arrives?"  
  
"He should be here any minute now," Quatre said, also looking at the door. "Call me when he gets here. I'm going to go clean up." With that, he turned and walked resolutely down the hall and straight into the bathroom, closing the door behind him without slamming it. The three remaining pilots looked at each other and then mentally shrugged before going in their separate directions.   
  
Ten minutes later the front door closed and Heero came walking in. He held a disc in his hand and immediately headed for his laptop. The other four followed him, Duo also carrying a disc of his own. Heero inserted the disc and immediately uploaded it. "So lets see what happened," Wufei said caustically, well aware of the fact that if he didn't say anything, Heero would probably just send the file to Dr. J without ever showing them the video.  
  
Heero glanced at him and grunted something unintelligible, but played the video. It happened just as Quatre had described it, the scientists activated the machine, the strange light show, the four 'kids' arriving, and then running for it. "It looks like Oz did bring them in," Duo muttered. "I don't think that surprise on their faces was fake. I don't think I've seen anyone that shocked since we first landed."  
  
"Your disc," Heero grunted, and Duo obediently handed it over. Heero uploaded it, and then played it, this time without them having to ask. There was the oldest of the 'kids', a young man about twenty years old, running from Oz soldiers. They opened fire, and he ducked his head, but didn't stop running. Either very brave or very foolish, Trowa reflected. He turned to look at the soldiers following him, and so he almost ran into Deathscythe. Naked fear showed on his face as Duo started to reach for him. Then there was a flash of light and he was gone.  
  
Everyone started, and even Heero blinked in surprise. "Back up," Quatre instructed unnecessarily - Heero was already doing just that. He backed up to when the boy ran into Deathscythe, and then played it forward in slow-motion. They saw the shock as he first saw the Gundam, followed by a brief moment in which he looked as if he was about to be sick, which was an interesting reaction. Nausea was not a common reaction to seeing a Gundam. Terror, yes, but not nausea. That reaction was quickly followed by the naked fear Trowa had noticed the first time through as the boy stumbled backwards.   
  
Then a sphere of light appeared around him, rapidly shrinking even in slow motion, and when it shrunk down to nothing, the boy was gone.   
  
"See?!" Duo cried triumphantly. "I told you! He disappeared!"   
  
There was a short silence after that. "But what was that?" Quatre finally asked in a small voice. Heero hurriedly finished sending the material to the scientists.  
  
"Teleportation?" Trowa suggested after a moment's thought.  
  
They all stared at him in shock, although if it was because he spoke or because of his suggestion he didn't know.   
  
"Teleportation?" Duo finally asked. "You mean like, instant transport from one point to another? No travel time?"  
  
Trowa shrugged. It had only been a thought.   
  
"It would explain why they disappeared from sensors," Quatre said thoughtfully. "Actually, it's one of the few things that could explain why they disappeared from our sensors. Either that or very sophisticated cloaking equipment, but I don't know how they could be carrying that, or how it would make us see... what we saw," he said uncomfortably.   
"Them being able to project some sort of interference is as valid as them being able to teleport," Wufei pointed out.  
  
"But it still doesn't explain what Duo saw," Quatre protested, and Wufei glowered at him. They all turned to look as the computer beeped, indicating an incoming mission brief.   
  
"Wow, that was quick," Duo remarked as Heero read the message, hiding the screen from the others with his body.  
  
"New mission," Heero said shortly. "Find and capture. They want them alive."   
  
Quatre's face went still, and it didn't take a genius to see that he was not happy with those orders. Trowa could see why he would be uncomfortable with the idea of turning a bunch of innocent kids (if that's what they were) over to the scientists who'd given them the Gundams and still gave them their orders. But orders were orders, and it was entirely possible that they weren't as innocent as they looked. Just look at their own group, for example - who'd expect the feared Gundam pilots, terrorists all of them, to be teenagers, none of them old enough to legally drive a car, much less vote.   
  
They'd know better when they caught them.   



	2. A Common Enemy

:How's it going?: Megabyte's voice said into her head.  
  
Ami sighed. :Nothing yet,: she replied as civilly as she could. :And we're never going to find anything if you keep interrupting me.:  
  
:Sorry,: he said, not sounding sorry at all.   
  
Ami sighed again. They'd only been in this world for less than a day, and already she wanted nothing more than to go home and not even think about Tomorrow Person business for a month or so. They'd been at the library for close to six hours now, and they still hadn't identified whatever it was that Adam had seen. Well, they had... sort of. They knew it was a mobile suit, which was a gigantic robot with a human sitting in the chest area to guide it. Everyone used those to fight as opposed to tanks, airplanes, or whatever else they used on their world. It also appeared to be the future, kind of. It was hard to tell, because they used a completely different standard here.   
  
Megabyte had almost had a fit when they found an abandoned paper and saw the date August 12, 195 AC. What sort of date was 195?! And what was AC? Some quick research told them that AC stood for After Colony - that would be after the first space colony was built, which took place sometime in the late twenty-first century. Which put them sometime in the twenty-third, if Adam was doing his math properly. Things hadn't changed much, except for the colonies themselves, mostly because of the war.   
  
This world had been at war almost constantly since before the colonies were built, almost two hundred years ago. It was hard to imagine a world where everyone was at war for hundreds of years, but apparently they'd managed it here without ever resorting to nuclear weapons, which was amazing in itself. The mobile suits only had conventional weapons, which had prolonged the war but kept it from ending in nuclear holocaust, which was a good thing. But none of the mobile suits they'd seen looked anything like what Adam had seen.   
  
:Adam!: Jade suddenly exclaimed. She'd gotten bored with looking through old newspapers and encyclopedias and was now watching the news over one of the librarian's shoulders.   
  
:What?:  
  
:It's here! Look!: she exclaimed, her eyes fixed on the screen.  
  
Adam, Megabyte, and Ami all jumped to their feet and rushed over to look. Ami got there just in time to see the huge machine that Adam had seen use some sort of weird stick with a glowing thing at the end to slash through the side of a huge ship, then spin and chop three normal mobile suits in half. Ami felt vaguely nauseous, looking at the violence. There were times that she was very grateful that she was a Tomorrow Person, knowing that she could never possibly commit such acts of violence. It got in the way sometimes, but she couldn't imagine actually wanting to do that, ever. She wondered what the pilot was thinking.   
  
:That's it,: Adam said grimly, his face pale.   
  
"The Gundam known as 02 destroyed three ships and just under thirty mobile suits off the east coast, less than thirty miles from the Westwood base," the announcer told them, his image taking the place of the destruction. "Casualty estimates are in the hundreds, but so far names are being withheld." The announcer went on to discuss the reactions to the attack by various influential political figures, but there were no more pictures show.   
  
"Gundam," Adam repeated out loud, then looked at Ami. "What's a Gundam?"  
  
The librarian overheard him. "What's a Gundam? Where have you been, boy, another planet?" Adam smiled shyly and shrugged. "The Gundams are the mobile suits sent by the colonies to strike against the Earth-sphere Alliance. But since the Earth-sphere Alliance broke up, they're mostly striking Oz facilities."  
  
"Oz?" Ami repeated. The only Oz she knew of was in the Wizard of Oz, and that couldn't be right.  
  
"Where have the two of you been?" the librarian asked, raising an eyebrow. "Oz is what's left of the Alliance Special Forces. They broke off from the rest of the Alliance a couple of months ago, right after the Gundams killed the Alliance's pacifists." She shook her head. "Disgraceful."  
  
"What do the Gundams want?" Adam wondered out loud.  
  
"Something to do with the freedom of the colonies," the woman said with a shrug and a sniff. "Terrorists, that's all they are. Things can't possibly be that bad in the colonies." She gave them a sharp look. "Where have you been that you didn't know all this?"  
"Wilderness retreat," Megabyte jumped in. "You know, go off in the woods with no outside connections for months? Very theraputic."  
  
The woman gave them a strange look, but went back to watching the t.v. without further comment, and they walked back to their seats.   
  
:Well, on the good side, I guess we don't need these anymore,: Megabyte said cheerfully, closing the book he'd been leafing through.   
  
:On the bad side, a murdering terrorist saw me teleport,: Adam responded, and Megabyte winced.   
  
:Yeah, I guess so.:  
  
:But the guys that were there, those were Oz soldiers, I think,: Ami interjected. :I've seen the uniforms a couple of times.:  
  
:So the government brought us here, but the terrorists... what did they want?: Megabyte asked.  
  
:How about that machine, whatever it was?: Jade added. :Was that what brought us here? What do they want with us?:  
  
:I don't think they wanted us, specifically,: Adam said thoughtfully. :Remember how surprised they all looked? They were expecting something, but it wasn't us.:   
  
:Great, so we ended up here because of someone's science experiment gone wrong,: Megabyte groused.  
  
:Yes, but if they got us here, maybe they can get us back,: Jade said excitedly.   
  
:We don't have such a great record concerning us and the government,: Megabyte pointed out. :How do we know that they aren't going to experiment on us?:  
  
:We don't, but right now they're the only chance we have of getting back,: Adam replied. Ami could sense his anxiety, and she agreed. They had a very bad record of dealing with government groups, but he was right, this was their best chance at getting back.  
  
:Well, if you want to talk to one of them, you've got your chance now,: Jade said suddenly. :There are couple of those soldiers in that uniform looking for us.:  
  
:What?: Adam asked, starting to rise, then forcing himself to sit back down when he realized that it would just draw attention to them. Ami turned and looked out of the corner of her eye. Jade was right, there were a couple of the soldiers talking to the librarian they'd spoken to, and in their hands were some drawings of the group. :Come on,: Adam said tensely, rising and walking back to the bookshelves, turning the first corner he came to so that they were out of sight.   
  
:I thought you wanted to talk to them,: Megabyte muttered.   
  
:Not here. If I go talk to them, I want to be able to run if I have to,: Adam replied.  
  
:I?: Ami asked. :You mean we, right?:  
  
:No, I mean I. You guys stay out of sight unless I say otherwise. There's no reason for all of us to risk ourselves.:  
  
:There's no reason for you to risk yourself, either!: Megabyte protested. :Ami or I can do it, too!:  
  
:Hey, what am I, chopped liver?: Jade demanded.  
  
:Shut up, kid,: Megabyte said impatiently. :Why should you be the only one to risk yourself?:  
  
:Because I'm the oldest.:  
  
:All the more reason for you to not be the one risking his neck!: Megabyte exclaimed. :We need you around. What are the rest of us going to do if you get yourself captured?:   
  
:This is not open to discussion,: Adam told him firmly, glancing at Ami for support, but she leveled a glare of her own at him. She didn't like the idea of risking one of the younger kids any more than he did, but Megabyte had a point - Adam was their leader, whether he wanted to admit it or not, and if he got caught, they would be losing the one person they all looked up to. :Come on, let's get out of here first. Go into the bathrooms and teleport to the alley we arrived in, OK?:  
  
:Fine, but we're going to discuss this some more before you do something stupid, right?: Ami asked firmly, and Adam nodded.  
  
Ami grabbed Jade's hand, squeezed it once, then the two of them walked straight towards the bathrooms. Ami didn't look behind her, but she felt Jade go tense beside her. :They've seen us,: Jade squeaked.   
  
:Just keep walking,: Ami said firmly. Hopefully the soldiers wouldn't follow them into the bathroom.  
  
She pushed open the door, and thankfully, there wasn't a line inside. They waited for a few seconds for the one woman inside to finish washing her hands, then both stepped into the stalls, pushing the door closed. Ami concentrated and teleported to the alley.   
  
Jade appeared beside her at almost the exact instant that she arrived, and the boys were already waiting for her. "Come on, we'd better get out of here," Ami said nervously, eyeing the library across the street. "We think the soldiers saw us just before they went in the bathroom, and it won't take them that long to figure out that we aren't coming out."  
  
Adam nodded and they walked quickly down the street until they came to a large park, and walked into it, keeping an eye out for more soldiers. When they didn't see any, Adam suggested they all sit down at one of the tables that were scattered around. They did, and Megabyte immediately said, "All right, so are we now ready to discuss why risking yourself is a stupid idea?"  
  
"It is not a stupid idea," Adam said impatiently. "On top of everything else, I'm the fastest runner."  
  
"You know, that's what I love about you, Adam, you're such an optimist," Megabyte remarked sarcastically.   
  
"And you're not the fastest runner, I am," Ami corrected him while giving Megabyte a stern look, then she blushed when he turned to stare at her. "I was on track team when I was younger. Megabyte was right, we do need you. And what if they catch me? You've got a better chance of getting me out than I do of getting you out. Besides, you're better at tackling people than I am," she added with a smile.  
  
He groaned. "This is a bad idea..."  
  
"What, it was a good idea when you were going to do it and it's a bad idea now that I'm going to do it?" she asked sharply, crossing her arms. "Don't you trust me?"  
  
"You know I do," he said helplessly.   
  
"Then you have to let me do this," she said, putting a slight accent on the 'me'.  
  
He frowned at her, but eventually nodded agreement.  
  
"All right, lets go!" Megabyte said enthusiastically.  
  
"Now?" Ami asked uncertainly.  
  
"Sure, what are we waiting for?"  
  
Ami decided that it would probably be a good idea to do this before she lost her nerve entirely. "Fine," she said, nodding in what she hoped was a confident manner. "Does anyone see any of those soldiers? Preferably only one or two of them," she added as an afterthought.   
  
"Not a problem - there are a couple of them right over there," Megabyte said, pointing over her shoulder.  
  
Ami spun around, ready to run... but there was nothing there. She turned back to glare at Megabyte, who was attempting (mostly unsuccessfully) to hide his grin. "Megabyte, I'm going to kill you," she threatened, mostly without any conviction. There were only so many times you could make the same threat before it lost strength.   
  
He laughed, and she ground her teeth. Suddenly he paled, looking at something over her shoulder. :Ami, you're about to get your chance, because there are a couple of them in the street.:  
  
"You might fool me once, but not again so soon," she sniffed.   
  
:Ah, he's not kidding,: Jade said.   
  
Ami very slowly turned her head to the side, so that she could look over her own shoulder. Sure enough, the two soldiers they'd seen before were now walking down the street. Great. Just great. Ami squared her shoulders. :Here goes nothing.:  
  
:Wait,: Adam told her, grabbing her arm. :Let us circle around so we can get behind them.:  
  
:Good idea,: Ami said. She didn't want to tell anyone, but she had a bad feeling about this entire plan. Too often her 'feelings' were vague premonitions of the future, but sometimes they were just her being nervous. She didn't think that Adam was going to give up on this idea, so there was no use worrying them. :Just... be careful.:  
  
Adam gave her a sharp look, as if he knew that she was holding something back, but finally he smiled encouragingly, nodded, then he, Megabyte, and Jade, ran off through the park. Ami stood but made no move to walk towards the soldiers, waiting for Adam to tell her they were ready. Maybe by the time they were ready she could get her heart to stop trying to jump out of her chest...  
  
----------------------------------  
  
"I really don't see what they expect us to do," Duo complained to Quatre as they strolled through the park. "Oz has got a million people, and they can't find them - how are we supposed to?"  
  
"We're..." Quatre dropped his voice, "Gundam pilots. We're supposed to be able to do anything," he smiled weakly.   
  
"Which is great for destroying bases, but not great for finding four humans," Duo retorted. He hesitated slightly when he saw the two Oz soldiers walking down the street in front of them, but only for an instant before logic kicked in and he kept walking. The Ozzies couldn't possibly know what he looked like. They wouldn't even know if he bumped into them. Not that he was planning to do that - there was such a thing as pushing your luck. "I think..." he broke off as something slammed into him from behind, causing him to stumble and knock over someone standing to his right.   
  
He scrambled to his feet in time to see a bunch of kids running down the path, running over everything in their way. Then he looked down at the person he knocked over. It was a pretty black girl, a few years older than himself, with a startled look on her face. "Man, I'm sorry," he apologized, holding out a hand to help her up. "Kids these days..."  
  
"It's all right," she said, grasping his hand and pulling herself to her feet. She was speaking English, but had a strange accent that he couldn't quite place. As soon as her hand touched his, however, her eyes unfocussed and she gasped. Eyes wide, she stumbled back a step. "I... I'm fine," she said, breathing hard. "I've got to go," she stammered, backing up several more steps before turning and running out of the park. Duo stared after her.   
  
"Weird," he muttered, then something else occurred to him. Turning to look at Quatre, he asked, "Did she look familiar to you?"  
  
Quatre has his hand pressed against his heart. "She was terrified," he murmured.  
  
"What?"  
  
"She was terrified of you. Of us," Quatre repeated, staring after the girl.   
  
Duo shook his head. "Nah, she was probably just pissed that I knocked her over."   
  
Quatre shook his head. "No, she was terrified. I can feel it." He glanced over at Duo. "Why would she be so scared of you?"  
  
Duo shrugged. He'd seen a lot of people who were afraid of him, but usually they waited until he was in Deathscythe to start being terrified. This was the first time he could think of that anyone had been terrified of him without him even pointing a gun at them. Very weird.   
  
The girl fled to the edge of the park, but stopped a few steps short of the street, like she was caught between two things. She looked nervously back at Duo and Quatre, then looked down the street... at the Oz soldiers? What was going on? "She's looking at the Ozzies," he muttered to Quatre.  
  
"You don't think..." Quatre trailed off, but Duo noticed him reaching for the gun hidden in a holster under his shoulder. He'd been surprised when Quatre showed it to him, but it did explain why he always wore that little vest.   
  
"Nah! What's she going to say, 'This guy knocked me over and I think he's a wanted terrorist?' Let's get out of here."  
  
"Sure," Quatre agreed, but he remained, staring at the girl, for several seconds. She'd suddenly gone completely still, and her eyes had a distant look to them. Probably some sort of nutcase. But Duo couldn't shake the feeling that she looked vaguely familiar, if he could only remember where he'd seen her...  
  
Finally Quatre turned and they started to walk down the street, away from the Ozzies. They'd barely made it a block when a voice with a familiar accent rose above the din of the crowd. "Ow! Stop it, you're hurting me!"  
  
Duo and Quatre both spun around. The two Oz soldiers had the girl shoved up against the wall of a building, her arms twisted behind her back. As they watched, the girl cried out in pain again as one of the soldiers pulled out a pair of handcuffs. The girl's head was turned towards them, her cheek pressed against the brick wall, but there was something about her face... there was fear there, a lot of it, but under that was sheer determination. She was scared, but not frozen in panic. And in that instant, he remembered where he'd seen her before.   
  
"Shit!" Duo exclaimed, pulling out his gun.  
  
"What?" Quatre asked, his hand slipping under his vest.  
  
"It's that girl! She's one of the four we saw before! The ones that Oz brought here!"  
  
Quatre's eyes widened. "What? How..."  
  
"I don't know, but we can't let Oz get her," Duo said, starting to run towards them. There were too many civilians in the way to get a clear shot.   
  
Before he got a clear shot, two figures flung themselves out of an alley, knocking over the two Oz soldiers and the girl before they could handcuff her. The red-haired boy they'd seen before immediately picked himself up and rushed back into the alley, while the older boy stood up and then pulled the girl to her feet. By then one of the soldiers had regained his feet and grabbed the boy's arm. The boy swung around with an incredibly clumsy punch that nevertheless managed to connect with the soldier's chin. It apparently wasn't much of a punch, since the soldier remained conscious, but he did fall over backwards, somehow managing to land on his companion, knocking him to the ground again. They were almost funny, and would have been except for the desperation on the faces of the boy and girl.  
  
The two of them started running down the street, and one of the soldiers struggled to his knees, drawing a gun. "Stop where you are!"   
  
The appearance of a gun had an immediate effect on the crowd that had gathered - panic. In just a few seconds there was no one within fifty feet of the soldiers, which simplified Duo's life considerably. The kids kept running.   
  
The soldier fired a single shot, and the boy suddenly collapsed. The girl skidded to a halt, then ran back to him, looking anxiously between him and the soldier who had shot him. "Adam!" she shrieked, pulling at the boy.  
  
"Just go!" he shouted. He had an accent too, although it was different than hers.   
  
"I'm not leaving you!" she replied, turning and putting herself between the boy and the soldier who was now approaching them, gun still drawn.   
  
"Bastard," Duo muttered. They'd just shot an unarmed boy who'd committed no crime worse than being from another world, and it wasn't even his idea! He aimed carefully and fired a single shot. It passed through the man's head, and the body actually stood upright for a few seconds before collapsing.   
  
The girl didn't scream. Instead, she raised a hand to her mouth and turned to look directly at him, an expression of fear and disgust on her face. The boy was also staring at him with an similar expression, although his grimace of pain made it difficult to tell. His hand was clamped down on his left thigh, which was rapidly turning dark red as the blood from his wound seeped into the cloth. For a moment time seemed to slow down.  
  
Then the second Oz soldier realized what had happened and spun around, drawing his own gun. Duo saw his brow wrinkle in confusion when he saw the two of them, looking like a couple of kids (kids holding guns), then his training took over and he fired at them. His mediocre training, seeing as he missed both of them, allowing them to dive for cover behind a nearby building. Out of the corner of his eye, Duo saw the boy fling his arm over the girl's shoulder and stumble to his feet, then the two of them began to flee again.  
  
The Oz soldier fired at them for several key seconds, then there was silence. Duo risked a glance around the wall, and saw that the soldier was running off after the kids. "We can't let him catch them," Quatre said seriously.   
  
Duo nodded. "Come on, I think we can cut them off if we go this way," he said, and took off down one of the side streets. Sure enough, less than a minute later, they were back out on the main street. There were more people here, but in a few seconds he saw the pair, doing their best to approximate a normal walk despite the fact that he was still bleeding quite heavily. It was obvious that they didn't want to show his (their?) unique abilities while in public.   
  
Duo knew how to deal with that - he raised his gun and fired a single shot into an empty car, or more precisely, into the fuel tank. It exploded marvelously, and succeeded in clearing the street of most of the people - the few curious souls that remained all left when he blew up a second car. All of them except for the pair, who obviously couldn't move very fast right now. Duo grinned to himself, then met Quatre's shocked stare. "What? I didn't kill anyone."  
  
Quatre shook his head wearily. "Never mind." The two of them walked out into the street and up to the pair, who seemed to be expecting them. The boy managed to pull himself completely upright despite his leg, and pushed the girl behind him. For once his face was completely expressionless as he stared at them, first at Duo, then at Quatre.  
  
When he looked at Quatre, his eyes got a little wider. "You're one of them too?" he asked. "But you're just kids..."  
  
"Hey, I don't think we're just anything," Duo said. "And what do you mean, one of them?"  
  
"You're one of the terrorists," the boy stated confidently. "In those huge machines. You tried to grab me in the woods."  
  
"How..." Quatre started to say, but Duo beat him to it.  
  
"How the hell do you know that?!"  
  
"You feel the same," the girl said softly.  
  
Duo didn't know how to deal with that, but he moved his hand so that they could see the gun he held, without actually pointing it at them. "So what are you going to do now?" he asked casually.   
  
The boy's eyes widened and grew guarded as he backed up a step, the girl supporting him. Suddenly there were two bursts of light and the other two appeared.   
  
"So you can all do that?" Duo asked, and the redhead winced.   
  
"You OK?" he asked the older boy. He was also speaking English, but it was a more familiar form than the other two. "That soldier guy is coming," he added, glancing nervously behind him before returning to watching the two Gundam pilots warily.   
  
The older boy didn't respond, just staring at the smaller boy, but the redhead lowered his head and the two younger kids disappeared again. The older boy looked at the pilots again, shaking his head. "We don't want any trouble, we just want to go home. Please, just leave us alone," he asked softly, then he and the girl disappeared in their own flashes of light.   
  
Just then the second Oz soldier came running around the corner. Duo killed him with a single shot. No one who saw a Gundam remained alive, and someone who saw the actual pilots was even worse. Quatre didn't comment, either on the strange kids or on the killing. His hand was once again pressed against his chest, and he had a distant look in his eyes. When he didn't look like he was going to move, ever, Duo gave him a discreet nudge. "Come on, Q. We'd better get back and report all this."  
  
------------------------------------  
  
"I thought the point of Ami doing this was to keep you from getting into trouble!" Megabyte complained once they were back in the Ship.   
  
"Megabyte..." whatever Adam was going to say was cut off as he gritted his teeth in an attempt not to cry out in pain as Ami poked at the wound in an attempt to determine how bad it was. All he knew was that it hurt a lot, and that his healing powers weren't working right now. It was really great when they did, but it was so random that it was like he had no control over it at all.  
  
Megabyte immediately looked repentant. "Sorry," he apologized, walking over. "Ami, how bad is it?"   
  
"Not too bad, I don't think," Ami said, wiping her bloody hands on one of the blankets. "I'm pretty sure it's just a graze, but I'll feel better when Jade gets back with some antiseptics," she said worriedly.   
  
:Ami? Tell me honestly, how bad is it?: Adam asked, trying his best to shield so that she wouldn't feel his pain. He wasn't sure whether or not she was being honest, or whether she was trying to keep Megabyte from worrying - or trying to keep him from worrying. That's what he would do under the same circumstances, anyway.  
  
:It's exactly like I said,: she told him with a slight wince that told him his effort at shielding wasn't completely successful. :You're going to be fine. The bullet only grazed you. I just want to make sure it doesn't get infected. And Megabyte was right, the whole idea was to keep you in one piece!: she scolded gently.  
  
Adam barely held back a groan. He wasn't sure he could take much more of Megabyte's unique brand of humor.  
  
Megabyte looked at them suspiciously, recognizing the signs of telepathic communication. "All right, that's not fair," he complained. "What did you just say?"  
  
"I'm just trying to convince Adam to go to a hospital," Ami lied, giving Adam a stern look. Actually, she had brought up that possibility when they first got back to the ship and he almost lost consciousness when he accidentally banged his leg against one of the walls. He'd refused - that was the quickest way he could think of to end up in a lab somewhere when the hospital tried to figure out who he was. Ami had insisted, and he'd managed to convince her to take a look at it to see how bad it was before he went to the hospital. Luckily it hadn't been too bad, he wasn't sure if he was up to arguing it out with her.   
  
There was a flash of light, and Jade appeared with several boxes and bottles in her arms. "I wasn't sure what to get so I just grabbed a bunch," she explained as she dumped them on the floor next to Adam. "And I grabbed a bunch of bandages, too. Here are the painkillers," she added, pulling a smaller bottle out of her pocket and handing it to him.  
  
"Thanks," he said, sighing in relief. He managed to lever himself into a sitting position and reached for the glass of water that Megabyte silently held out. He swallowed several of the pills and then leaned back.  
  
Ami was looking through the various bottles and boxes that Jade had brought back, occasionally glancing at Adam. "What is it?" he finally asked.  
  
"I'm sorry, but we're going to have to get your pants off first, or at least that one leg. And unless someone stole a pair of scissors..."  
  
"I got it," Megabyte announced, pulling something out of his pocket. "My dad gave me a Swiss army knife." He examined it and selected a small blade. "Now just stay still..."  
  
"Megabyte, if you cut me, I'm never going to forgive you," Adam said seriously.   
  
"Give me some credit - I was a boy scout when I was little."   
  
"When you were little... how little?" Adam asked suspiciously, but before he could follow up on those suspicions, Megabyte inserted the knife between his pants and his skin and made a quick thrust, slicing open the material all the way up to his hip. Then he did the same thing on the other side of the wound, all the way down to his ankle. Even Adam had to admit that it hadn't hurt at all.   
  
"OK, let's get this off," Ami said, slowly peeling the bloody cloth away from his skin, and despite himself, Adam winced. "Adam, this might be easier if you went to sleep while I cleaned this," she said. "It's going to hurt a lot. Besides, you've lost a lot of blood."  
  
Adam considered. It did hurt a lot, but still... He felt the Ship reach out and touch his mind gently, and the pain suddenly lessened greatly. "It's all right," he said, shaking his head. "The Ship is helping. I think it can help me heal faster, too."   
  
"It can?" Jade asked, glancing up at the walls of the ship. The great column glowed a little more brightly and moaned at them. Jade grinned at it. "Yeah, you're right."  
  
Adam deliberately avoided his eyes as Ami put some liquid from one of the bottles - a disinfectant, he hoped - on one of the gauze pads and carefully started wiping away the blood around the wound. There was a lot of it. To keep his mind off of what was happening, he asked, "So what happened, exactly?" He knew, in a kind of indirect way, from what he'd observed and from what Ami's mind told him, but he wanted to hear it from her.  
  
Ami's hand faltered for a moment before continuing her gentle strokes. "I... I walked up to them and I said that I thought they might be looking for me, and that I wanted to talk to their superiors. They looked at me for a second, then they grabbed me and shoved me up against the wall." She rubbed her cheek with her free hand before continuing. "They were going to handcuff me, and the things I could feel..." she shuddered.   
  
"What?" he pushed.  
  
"Just... darkness. They were killers, and they enjoyed it. They knew they were hurting me, and they did it on purpose. And they've done it before."  
  
"What?"  
  
"To people, normal people, they push them around, take supplies and other things whenever they want..." she shuddered again. "I don't think we want to go to an organization that has that sort of people working for it."  
  
"They can't all be bad," Adam protested.  
  
"Maybe. But you know what the weird thing is?" she asked.   
  
For a moment, Adam's mind flew back to the various adventures he'd lived through since becoming a Tomorrow Person. He'd discovered that 'weird' was entirely relative. Please don't let it involve aliens, psychotic mosquito-loving scientists, or ancient gods, he prayed quietly. That would be a little much right now. Gigantic robots and space colonies were bad enough. "What?" he asked warily, then winced as she poured some of the liquid directly over the wound.   
  
"Sorry, I just want to make sure there's no bacteria or anything in there." Ami stared at the wound for a few seconds. "I think it's OK. Now let me just wrap this... The weird thing was that I didn't get that feeling from the kids. You know, the terrorists."  
  
Adam frowned. "What?"  
  
"I didn't get that sort of darkness from them."  
  
"Hello! They're terrorists! Of course they're killers!" Jade exclaimed.  
  
"I know! I know it's crazy, and I never said that they weren't killers, I just said that they didn't have that sort of darkness. It's like they kill, but they don't enjoy it," Ami defended herself. "And they did try to protect us, I think."   
  
"What?" Megabyte asked.  
  
"The one with the braid shot the soldier that shot Adam," Ami replied as she continued to wrap gauze around Adam's leg.   
  
"Having a homicidal maniac on our side is not a good thing!" Jade exploded.   
  
"Hey, guys?" Megabyte said with an unusual hesitancy in his voice. Unusual for him, anyway. "I hate to bring this up, but just because a person carries a gun and because they may have to kill people doesn't make them evil," he finished, staring at the floor.  
  
Adam could have smacked himself. "You're right, but your dad doesn't go around attacking people," he said gently.   
  
"I was just saying that just because they're soldiers doesn't mean that they're bad people," he said grumpily. "And what's up with them being my age? I mean, OK, I have a weird life, but they're normal, right? Do people here normally start killing at a young age or is it just them?"   
  
"What difference does it make?" Jade asked. "They're the terrorists, we can all feel it." Adam took a good look at her. Something was really bothering her, something about those pilots, and it was something that she wasn't ready to share with them yet. He considered pushing, but decided to give her some more time to come out with it on her own. "You can't possibly mean that you think the terrorists are the good guys?" she asked, her voice rising on every word.   
  
Megabyte shrugged. "They didn't try to shoot us."  
  
"Neither did Masters," Jade pointed out, then grimaced at the reminder. She hadn't been around when Masters tried to capture them all to use in experiments, trying to create the perfect soldier, but she'd heard enough to know that it was a very sensitive topic with those who'd managed to live through it. "Sorry."  
  
"I'm just saying that we need to find out more about what's going on," Megabyte said. "I mean, America was started by a bunch of rebels. Just because you're going against the government doesn't mean you're bad. I mean, just look at us."  
  
"That wasn't really the government," Ami said. "It was just a bunch of people who wanted to..." she cut herself off. "It wasn't legal. And the government was the bad guys there."  
  
"So what if the government is the bad guys here?" Megabyte challenged.   
  
There was a long silence after that comment. Great, Adam thought to himself. Not only are we in another time and another world, we've slid into the middle of a Star Wars rebels-vs-the-evil-empire scenario. So now what? We go up to the terrorist kids and ask them to nicely explain why they're going around killing people? He knew better than to voice his doubts out loud. He was supposed to be the leader of their group, and that meant not showing how confused he was, even when he had no idea what to do.   
  
Luckily, Ami wasn't under those constraints. "So what do you expect us to do? Walk up to the nice terrorists and ask them to explain the situation to us?"  
  
Megabyte shrugged. "It's worth a try. At least we know they won't shoot us out of hand. And they already know we can teleport, so it wouldn't be like we were giving anything away."   
  
"Maybe, we might try that, if we knew where they were, but we don't, so we can't," Ami replied uneasily. She looked very relieved that that was the case.  
  
Suddenly the uneasy feeling that Adam was getting from Jade intensified. Apparently everyone else felt it too, because they all turned to look at Jade, who was studying the floor with quiet intensity. "Ah, if you guys want to find them, I can do it."  
  
"What?" Megabyte exclaimed. "How?"  
  
If anything, Jade looked more uncomfortable as she said, "One of the terrorists... the blond one... he's sensitive. An empath, at least. He's got a really strong aura. Really distinctive. I guess you guys missed it because you were concentrating on..." her gaze drifted to Adam's leg before returning to the floor. "... other things. But I'm pretty sure I could find it again, especially if the Ship helps me."   
  
Adam couldn't get his mind around something she'd said. "How can an empath be a terrorist?"  
  
"I guess we'll have to ask him when I go talk to them," Ami said suddenly, and Adam's head snapped up.  
  
"No!"  
  
"Why not?" she demanded. "I thought we just decided it was a good idea."  
  
"We said that it might work, not that it was a good idea, and that was when we were talking about it theoretically," Adam returned.   
  
"So? It's still a good idea," Ami replied. "Jade can find them and then give me the placement. I'll go and see if they'll answer some of our questions. If they won't, or if anything starts to look dangerous, I'll just teleport back here. Simple."  
  
"And what if something else happens? What if they trick you..." Adam suddenly cut himself off, realizing that wasn't the brightest thing he could have said.   
  
Ami glared at him and crossed her arms. "Well, even if I am an idiot and they trick me and knock me out or something, all you guys have to do is teleport in, grab me, and teleport out. At least then we'll know that they're not the good guys."  
  
"I should..."  
  
"You can't even stand up right now, and if you try it I'm going to step on your leg," she threatened.  
  
He had a feeling she was serious and didn't try to move. "This is a really bad idea, a stupid idea."  
  
"Oh? Better or worse than tackling an armed soldier?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.   
  
"Besides, this won't be the first stupid thing we've done," Megabyte said cheerfully.   
  
"Yeah, but it might be the last," Adam snapped.  
  
"If there's any trouble, I'll just teleport out," Ami said consolingly, and Adam knew that he wasn't going to win this argument.   
  
He was silent for a full minute, letting them know that he was very unhappy, then finally turned to Jade. "Do you need any help?"  
  
She cast him an apologetic look at having provided the method for finding the terrorists, but shook her head. "I can do this, but it might take a while."  
  
"In the meantime, you're going to have some food, and then go to sleep," Ami said firmly to Adam, making him feel as if he were four years old instead of nineteen. But he knew better than to argue with Ami when she was in this mood.   
  
"Fine," he sighed, trying to get comfortable on the floor with only one thin blanket as padding between him and the cold metal floor. At least, they thought it was metal - it was a little hard to tell. He closed his eyes. A few seconds later he opened them again as he felt something pass through the air right above his head.   
  
He saw a grinning Megabyte standing over him, a wicked grin on his face. He waved his hand in front of Adam's face again and then chuckled to himself. "I just wanted to see if you were still awake!"   
  



	3. Meeting

"So after Duo blew up the car... cars," Quatre corrected himself. "Everyone ran... except for the two of them."  
  
"Because they couldn't," Wufei observed.  
  
Quatre nodded with a grimace. "I hope he's OK," he murmured to himself before returning to the story. "Anyway, it was like they were expecting us," he added. "Like they knew we were there before we stepped out of hiding." He took a deep breath. "And they knew who we were. Both of us."   
  
Heero glared at both of them. "What did you say?" he asked accusingly.  
  
"We didn't say anything!" Quatre protested, glancing at Duo, who nodded in agreement but let Quatre keep talking. He was better at explaining this sort of thing, anyway. "He looked at me and said, 'You're one of them too?' Then he said that he recognized Duo from the woods, that he was in the huge machine that tried to grab him."  
  
"Which I did," Duo put in.  
  
Quatre nodded. "Then the girl said that we felt the same. Then the two other ones, the younger ones, appeared with that flash of light. The redhead said that the soldier was coming, and then the two younger ones vanished again. The older boy... I think his name is Adam... he begged us to leave them alone, and then the two of them disappeared again. Then the soldier caught up with us, so Duo killed him, and we returned here as quickly as we could," he summarized. "Right, Duo?"  
  
"Yeah, sure," Duo answered.  
  
"What's wrong?" Quatre asked, a frown creasing his brow.  
  
"I just keep thinking about their faces. Do you remember?" Duo asked, his voice quiet and introspective for once. "They were scared of us, more like terrified, but you know what I can't get out of my head? The disgust. There was something about them, but we disgusted them, or they pitied us, something like that. It was... weird."  
  
"So what do we do now?" Quatre asked out loud after staring at him for a second. "It was coincidence that we ran into them the first time, and they've obviously disappeared again." He giggled, sounding much more like a child then the trained terrorist Duo knew him to be. "Literally."  
  
Duo groaned. "Bad pun, Quatre, bad pun. I guess we should start..." he trailed off as there was a flash of light and a figure appeared in the middle of the room. He had his weapon trained on the intruder before he realized what he was doing. So did the others.  
  
"Don't shoot me!" cried a familiar voice, and Duo threw himself between the girl and Heero, who had the itchiest trigger finger.   
  
"Don't shoot!" he shouted, standing above the cowering figure. He waited until the others let their hands drop to their sides, then spun to look at the girl. Once the guns weren't pointed at her anymore, she stopped trying to cover her head with her arms. Her eyes widened when she saw the gun in his hand, but she still stood up all the way before slowly backing away from him until she ran into the couch. "What are you doing here?" he asked coldly.  
  
For a moment it looked like she was going to panic again, but then she took a deep breath and raised her head slightly. That was when Duo realized that she was actually taller than she was - when the hell was he going to hit his growth spurt?   
"We... I came to talk to you."  
  
"How did you find us?" Wufei asked. He'd put away his gun, but now had his sword out, which was not an improvement.   
  
"We... I tracked him," she said, nodding towards Quatre.   
  
"What? That's impossible!" Quatre gasped.  
  
"Yeah, I'm leaning towards his view with that one," Duo said. "You didn't have time to plant a tracer. So lets try this again, the truth this time, how did you find us?"  
  
Instead of cowering again, she surprised him by getting angry and indignant. "I did tell the truth! I never said that I planted a tracker, whatever that is! I just said that we tracked him!"  
  
"All right then, how did you do it?" Duo asked sarcastically.  
  
She froze, biting her lip, then looked down at the floor, every now and then glancing up at Quatre. "His aura... it's like a psychic signature... it's very strong and very unique. We just looked for that and then I teleported here. We were only guessing that the rest of you would be here." She looked nervously around the room. "It is all of you, isn't it?" she asked softly, looking sad.  
  
Duo glanced at Heero, who did not look pleased by this latest event. Since his philosophy tended towards shoot first, ask later, he decided that they'd better get off this subject before Heero decided to kill her. Actually, he probably wouldn't kill her, because that would be violating orders, but that didn't mean that he wouldn't shoot her. "So, I'm guessing that we is yourself and those other kids, the older boy, the redhead, and the little girl?" he asked.   
  
She nodded.  
  
"And where are they now?"  
  
She shook her head. "I'm not telling you. They're safe," her eyes glazed over for a second. "And hidden," she concluded.   
  
"Don't trust us?" Duo asked sarcastically.  
  
"No."  
  
"Then what are you doing here?"   
  
"We... I wanted to ask you some questions about your world."  
  
"So you really are from another world?" Quatre asked, and the girl nodded.  
  
"We... there aren't any space colonies where we're from, or major wars, and the first time we saw a mobile suit was when you tried to grab him," she said, glancing at Duo. She hesitated, then asked, "Were you trying to kill him, or just grab him?"  
  
"Lady, if I'd wanted to kill him, he'd be dead," Duo told her, and she blanched. Her eyes traveled to the gun that he still held, and he could almost see her pulling away from it.   
  
"Can you put that thing away?" she asked, and once again he could hear disgust in her voice.  
  
"What this?" he asked, lightly tossing the gun to his other hand and then sticking it in the back of his pants, nodding at the others, who also hid their guns, although none of them actually put them down. Despite the fact that they hadn't actually gotten rid of the guns, the girl visibly relaxed when she couldn't see them anymore.  
  
"Thank you," she said softly.  
  
"All right, you seem to be terrified of us, and you obviously don't trust us, why do you want to ask us questions?" Duo asked.  
  
The girl stared at him blankly for a moment, then the corners of her lips curled upwards and she ducked her head to hide her face.   
  
"What's so funny?" he asked.  
  
"Nothing. I was just thinking of something one of my friends would say."  
  
"And what's that?"  
  
"That at least you guys didn't shoot us, and that's a good beginning," she said with a fair approximation of an American accent.   
  
Duo surprised the other and himself by laughing aloud. "I think I like your friend," he said. "That is a good beginning, by some standards."   
  
The girl's eyes suddenly glazed over, then narrowed, and her lips tightened.   
  
"What's wrong?" Quatre asked.  
  
Her eyes unglazed, and she shook her head. "Nothing. It's just that's a very bad beginning, by some standards. Just because they aren't shooting at you doesn't mean that they're the good guys. Sometimes it just means they want you alive."  
  
Ouch, Duo thought. Something about the way she said that made him think she was speaking from experience. It also came a little too close to their actual orders concerning the girl for comfort. "Why?"  
  
The girl gave him a sharp look. "You've seen what we can do. You're telling me that you don't think that it would be a little useful for the government?" As soon as the last word left her mouth, she winced.   
  
"Government?" Duo asked, picking up on the slip.   
  
She frowned at him. "Will you answer some of our questions or not?"  
  
Duo glanced at Heero, who had the same non-expression on his face that he always did, then shrugged. "You can ask your questions. We'll see whether or not we can answer them."   
  
"How can you kill?" The question was immediate, and direct, and it froze Duo in his shoes. What the hell kind of question was that? he wondered. He knew she wasn't looking for a physical method for killing people, but still... He opened his mouth to say something flip when he realized that the question hadn't been directed at him. She was staring directly at Quatre, and the question had definitely been directed to him and him alone.  
  
"What?" Quatre asked with a faint frown, and Duo noticed that his hand was pressed against his chest again.   
  
"You're sensitive, aren't you?" she asked, and there was real strain in her voice. In fact, it was just a shade away from cracking. Something about this conversation was really bothering her.  
  
"What do you mean by sensitive?" he asked curiously.  
  
"You're an empath," she stated bluntly. "Right? You can feel other people."  
  
"Sometimes," Quatre said cautiously. "It's stronger with some people than others. How did you know?" She didn't answer him, and after a second he asked, "You're... sensitive too, aren't you? That's how you knew."   
  
She bit her lip again. "Yes. I am. That is how I knew. Now, how can you kill, knowing what others feel?"  
  
"When I fight, I try to shut it off," Quatre said slowly. "It still hurts, but I can function that way, complete my missions."  
  
Duo stared at Quatre. He'd had no idea that Quatre was in pain every time he fought - he'd heard Quatre begging their enemies to surrender so that he wouldn't have to kill them, but he'd never connected it with what had happened when Heero had tried to self-destruct.  
  
"Why?" the girl asked sharply.  
  
"Because the Alliance... well, Oz now, they have to be stopped. They've hurt too many people in the colonies... I want to protect my family. I don't want anyone else to have to worry about the things that we have..." He trailed off and shrugged apologetically. "It's hard to explain."  
  
The girl studied him seriously. "May I touch your hand?" she asked gravely.  
  
Quatre seemed surprised by the question, then silently extended his hand. She took several steps towards him and then reached out and hesitantly took his hand. Quatre gasped, and both of them froze, eyes wide and unseeing. When, after several seconds they showed no sign of moving, Duo reached out and grabbed the girl's wrist, intending to separate them. He got another surprise as the girl cried out in pain and jerked her hand away from him, clutching her wrist.   
  
Quatre stumbled as she pulled her hand away and almost fell. He stared at Duo with wide eyes, then looked at the girl, who had backed away as far as she could without actually moving around the couch. "Are you all right?" he asked.  
  
"Please don't touch me," she said, still clutching her wrist like it was burned.  
  
For some reason, that simple gesture made him angry. "What? Are you too good for me? What's so bad about me that's not bad about Quatre?"  
  
Her mouth opened and closed once, then she winced and dropped her head. "I'm sorry," she finally said. "I didn't mean it that way. It's just... you have a very strong aura - not like his... Quatre's," she said after a quick hesitation. "But it's stronger than most normal humans. And... you feel like death. It's probably not your fault, but... I don't like it. It doesn't feel good. I'm sorry. "  
  
Duo felt all of the anger drain out of him. Death. It always comes back to Death, doesn't it? "No, it's all right. I guess that's what scared you in the park?"  
  
She nodded. "It isn't so bad, really. I was just working on picking up impressions just now, that's why you startled me so badly. And I wasn't expecting it at all in the park."  
  
"It's OK, lady, I understand," he told her.   
  
Her eyes glazed over, and she turned her head slightly to the side. "I... I have to go now. Thank you for your help."  
  
"Will we see you again?" Quatre asked softly.  
  
"I don't know," the girl said simply.   
  
"Wait!" Duo exclaimed before she could disappear again.   
  
"What?"  
  
"Your friend... Adam, right? He got shot?"  
  
She paled slightly and her hand drifted down to her thigh. She swallowed and nodded.   
  
"Hang on a sec," Duo told her, and then quickly ran to the bathroom. He returned with a spare med pack. "Here," he said, tossing it to her. "Got some better grade supplies than stuff you can get in the stores. 'Specially has some stuff that will help with gunshots," he added, glancing out of the corner of his eye at Heero, who glowered at him. Duo wasn't sure if Heero had ever forgiven him for shooting him right after they arrived on Earth.   
  
"Thank... thank you!" the girl stammered. There was a flash of light and she disappeared.   
  
All of the tension immediately drained out of the room, and Duo looked at Quatre. "Q? Mind telling the rest of us non-psychics what just happened?"  
  
"She's powerful," Quatre said softly, looking at his own hand. "She's an empath, like me, but much, much stronger. I think she was sifting through my memories when we touched hands."  
  
"And this didn't bother you?" Duo asked when Quatre paused momentarily. He, for one, valued his privacy very strongly, and didn't want anyone looking around in his head. They might see some of the memories that he preferred not to examine too closely.  
  
"She only looked at what I showed her," Quatre explained patiently. "Actually, she was very polite. They're very confused," he added. "And scared. I wasn't able to get much from her, but... when she said that just because a person wasn't shooting at them didn't make them friends, she was talking from personal experience. I think their own government, in their own world, tried to experiment on them." He shuddered.   
  
"That sucks," Duo remarked.   
  
Quatre nodded in agreement. "You did the right thing in giving her those supplies. She's very worried about her companion, and it will make them more likely to come to us later. Oz has already lost their trust, they don't have anyone else to turn to." He paused pensively. "We can't turn them over to the scientists."   
  
That comment earned him a glare from Heero and Wufei, silence from Trowa (big surprise there), and a skeptical look from Duo. "Quatre, we have orders..."  
  
"We've disobeyed them before, haven't we?" Quatre immediately responded. "We are not turning them over to the scientists," he said firmly. No one responded, but Duo could already see that this was going to become a major bone of contention between them over the next few days. Personally, he agreed with Quatre. Actually, he wouldn't turn a dog over to the scientists if he had anything to say about it, but he didn't. He was waiting to find out more about these kids before making a judgment on this issue, though.   
  
"It may not matter," Duo pointed out to the others to delay the impending fight. "They can do that disappearing thing. So far we've seen them do it out in the woods, after one of them was shot, and now into a building! If they can do that through walls, how are we supposed to hold them anyway?"  
  
--------------------------------------  
  
Ami reappeared in the Ship. "Are you all right?" Adam immediately asked.   
  
Ami shot him a look that said that he should have known better than to ask a question like that, and to tell the truth, he should have. He knew that she was fine - he would have known the instant anything went wrong, and would have known exactly what was wrong as well. "Sorry."  
  
"It's all right," she said, immediately seating herself and opening the box that the braided boy had given her. She started examining the contents, finally tossing a bottle at him. "Take two of these."  
  
"Are you sure?" he asked doubtfully.  
  
"I wouldn't go over and put our lives in their hands, but I'd know if he was trying to hurt you. And he isn't. So take the pills."   
  
He grimaced and then swallowed two of the pills. He lay his head back down, wishing that he felt better - at least good enough so that he could pace. It would be good to be able to get rid of some of this nervous energy.   
  
"How are you feeling?" Megabyte asked, doing some pacing of his own.  
  
"I'll survive," he assured the younger boy. He looked at Ami. "So, what do you think of them?"  
  
Ami closed her eyes for a long moment before opening them. "I hate to say this, but I really do think they're the good guys here. Or at least as good as we're going to find." She turned her head away. "I don't know what to think. They're all killers, but I think they're better than the government. Here, I'll show you what I got from Quatre's mind." She knelt at his side and raised her hands. The others quickly got in a circle with her and they linked minds. Adam closed his eyes as images flooded through his mind, some no more than a vague impression, others quite vivid and clear. Then it was over, as Ami withdrew her hands, and Adam began to file through the memories he'd just received.   
  
"Damn," Megabyte remarked after a few minutes. "Their whole government is one big pile of corruption, isn't it?"  
  
Adam frowned. He wanted to protest that this might not be the truth, but he knew that Ami had found this information in a crude sort of mind-link with another empath. You couldn't lie under those circumstances, especially given that Quatre didn't seem to have any training with his skill, other than shutting it off when he fought.   
  
And there was the problem - they might be the good guys, but they were also terrorists, killers all of them. And Adam couldn't wrap his mind around that fact. Maybe it was because he'd been a Tomorrow Person for so long, or maybe he was just more peaceful than the others (which was a little extreme, he admitted), but he just couldn't get beyond that. He couldn't even conceive of anything that could make you feel that you had to kill to deal with it (not that it was ever going to be a problem for him), and that made it harder for him to relate to people sometimes.  
  
So he remained silent, waiting for the others reactions first. Megabyte was right, the entire government reeked of corruption. He'd suspected it when they were looking through the old newspaper articles - something just hadn't been right, and what Ami had seen in Quatre's mind fit that very well. Suppression of ideas and people in general, no communication, no free press... Well, it all fit. Which meant that he wasn't letting any of the Tomorrow People within a hundred feet of anyone connected with the government, if he had anything to say about it.  
  
That didn't mean that he wanted to put their lives in the hands of a bunch of killers, though. It didn't seem like they had much choice in the matter, though. There were three factions with enough power to do anything substantial - the remnants of the Alliance (the government), Oz (part of the government) and the Gundam pilots. Of those groups, only Oz and the Gundam pilots might possibly know something about how they got here and how to get them home. Already home seemed very far away, and was likely to grow more so in time.  
  
After several hours of talking (arguing), they finally decided that they could keep on talking to the Gundam pilots, who, as Megabyte put, 'haven't shot any of us yet.' They needed to find out whether or not the Gundam pilots had any idea on how to get them home, or if they needed to make some kind of deal with Oz.  
  
Adam felt his leg twinge in protest at that thought, and hoped it wouldn't come up.  
  
------------------------------------------  
  
Duo was drinking some coffee the next morning when there was a flash of light and a little girl arrived. He promptly spilled all of the coffee all over himself and jumped around the kitchen cursing and trying to cool himself off. The girl just stood there staring at him, not helping or anything. Quatre and Wufei came running into the room. "What's wrong?" Quatre asked, also staring at him.  
  
"That little... ow... coffee... ah!... hot!" he explained eloquently, still dancing around.  
  
Quatre tried to hide his grin, and Wufei muttered something in Chinese that Duo didn't catch. "It isn't funny!" Duo snarled as the coffee finally began to cool down. Now he just had a wet spot on his clothes in an embarrassing place.  
  
The girl giggled, covering her mouth with her hands. Wufei immediately spun, reaching for his sword,, which luckily wasn't there. Quatre reached for his gun and immediately brought it around to face the girl, who let out a startled cry and vanished in a flash of light. She reappeared an instant later behind Quatre, who jumped about a foot in the air. It would have been funny except that Duo was doing the exact same thing, and the rapidly cooling coffee wasn't getting any more comfortable.  
  
"Wait, don't shoot her," he said disgustedly. "It's one of them. The... teleporters. Isn't there any way to put a warning system on you guys?" he demanded.  
  
She actually giggled again. It occurred to him that laughing at a couple of well-armed terrorists who weren't in a good mood wasn't a particularly smart idea, but he wasn't about to shoot her for it. This time. "What's so funny?"  
  
"We just hear that a lot," she explained, getting control of herself. She had the same accent as the black girl from yesterday. "We haven't figured out a warning system yet. Sorry."  
  
She didn't sound particularly sorry. "You hear that a lot? From who?"  
  
"Our parents, mostly," she said with a shrug. "I'm Jade," she said, offering her hand.  
  
"You don't have a problem touching me?" he asked doubtfully.  
  
"No, I'm not quite as sensitive as Ami is," the girl replied cheerfully.   
  
Ami, huh? "OK," he said, carefully taking her hand. He was watching for a reaction, and got a small one - a low gasp and a widening of her eyes, but she didn't pull away until she'd shaken his hand firmly. "I'm Duo."  
  
"Pleased to meet you," she mumbled distractedly, staring at her own hand. "That is the strangest sensation," she murmured before finally extending her hand to Quatre, who quickly shook it.   
  
"Quatre," he said quickly, a bemused expression on his face.  
  
Jade turned to Wufei, who turned away with a disgusted look on his face. She frowned slightly, then looked at Duo. "Is it me?" she asked in a stage whisper.  
  
He shook his head. "Nah, Wufei's like that with everyone," he answered, ignoring Wufei's glare for telling the girl his name. "I'd introduce you to the others, but they're out right now." Actually, they were on a mission, which was sort of like being out, except there were more explosions.  
  
She shrugged. "That's all right. I just wanted to look around and talk a little. By the way, Adam says thank you for the pills. They helped a lot."  
  
"No problem."   
  
She smiled brilliantly, then resumed her obvious study of the kitchen. "This is a nice place you've got here - much nicer than where we're staying."  
  
"And where is that?" Duo asked casually.  
  
"I'm not allowed to tell. Not that it would do you any good if I was, since we don't really know."   
  
"Oh." Duo didn't know what to make of that statement. How couldn't you know where you were staying?   
  
"You do have really long hair," she commented, staring at his braid. "How long has it taken you to grow it?"  
  
"Ah, I've always had it," he responded after a moment's hesitation. Her gaze suddenly intensified, and he got an uneasy feeling between his shoulders, like someone was watching him from behind. He - well, all of the pilots, really - had developed a sort of sixth sense that had nothing to do with Quatre's empathy, that told them when they were being watched, or when they were walking into a trap. So why was he feeling it now?  
  
The feeling fled as soon as it appeared, and the girl wilted slightly. "Oh. I see," she said softly. Then she frowned. "Darn it," she muttered under her breath.   
  
"What?"  
  
Suddenly there was another flash of light and the red-haired boy appeared. "Jade!" he hissed. "What are you doing here?" American accent, Duo noted. Very strange. You didn't usually find people with such obviously different accents hanging around together. Unless you were a Gundam pilot, but most of the normal rules didn't apply to them. "You're just lucky that Adam's asleep, but Ami's going to kill..." he trailed off as he realized that they had an audience. "Ah... hi," he said, his face turning as red as his hair, which was a neat trick.   
  
"Hello," Duo said cheerfully, interested by the argument. It seemed that the teleporters were far from unified. That could be useful. "Anything wrong?"  
  
"Nothing much," the other boy told him with a forced smile before turning to glare at the girl again. "Just a kid going where she isn't supposed to."  
  
"Kid?" Jade asked, her voice rising dangerously. Suddenly her eyes narrowed. "That's Duo, and Quatre, and that's Wufei," she said, pointing to each in turn. "And that's Marma..."   
  
The boy suddenly cut her off. "I'm Megabyte," he said quickly, glaring at the girl. "Nice to meet you. Sorry, but we've got to go." He shot the girl another glare, which she returned, before they both disappeared.   
  
Duo looked at Quatre, who shrugged. "They're... interesting, aren't they?" he said, polite to the last.   
  
"I think they're crazy, but that's just me," Duo said. "What do you think, Wufei?"  
  
Wufei gave him a disgusted look and left the room.  
  
There was another flash of light and the black girl, Ami, appeared. Her hands were already held up, as if she anticipated having guns pointed at her again. When everyone just stared at her warily, she lowered her hands. "I just wanted to apologize for anything that Jade or Megabyte said or did," she said quickly, then her gaze drifted down to his pants. "Oh, sorry about your pants. That happens a lot."  
  
"So I've heard. You mind telling us about what's going on? What's wrong with the Jade kid?"  
  
Ami grimaced slightly. "She just told us she was going... somewhere else, and came here instead, after we told her to wait. We're going to have a talk about that."  
  
"Mm-hm. Well, she didn't cause too much trouble. Except the pants," he added.  
  
"Yes... well..." she suddenly looked uncomfortable, and he had a good idea why.  
  
"You were trying to protect her from us. I understand. It's a good idea - we are terrorists," he said with a shrug.  
  
If it was possible, she looked even more uncomfortable after he said that. "Yes, we know, but..." she cut herself off. "Thank you."  
  
"For what?" Quatre asked.  
  
"For your honesty. And... for protecting us yesterday - ah, the day before," she stammered. Her eyes glazed again for a second. "I... have to go. I'll come back and explain later. Sorry," she repeated herself, then disappeared.  
  
"Well, that was almost as strange as the two younger ones," Duo remarked.  
  
"There's no distance limit," Quatre murmured to himself.  
  
"What?" Duo asked.  
  
"She didn't know how long it had been since we helped them. I sometimes have that problem when we catch a transport and start hopping around the world or jumping to the colonies. You lose track of how much time has passed in one particular area. So they must be changing time zones. So they must be able to teleport vast distances. There might not be any limit at all."   
  
"That would make them very, very useful, wouldn't it?" Duo said softly. "They could teleport into a secure facility, grab data or kill someone, and then jump out and be a thousand miles away before anyone knew something was wrong. No wonder they have problems with the government back on their world. Just about everyone from a legit government to crime organizations would love to get their hands on them. Shit."  
  
"The doctors would love to get their hands on them," Quatre said quietly.  
  
"Yeah," Duo said slowly, still not sure how he felt on that issue. "You think it's something you can learn? Or some sort of technology?"  
  
Quatre shook his head. "It's inborn, I'm sure of it. They're empaths, like me, except for a lot stronger. That's connected to their abilities, somehow. I don't think that we're going to learn how to do that anytime soon."   
  
"Shit. The doctors aren't going to take your word for it, though, are they?" Duo asked, knowing the answer to his question. If we turn them over to the docs, we won't have done them any favors by saving them from Oz.   
  
Quatre shook his head. "What are we going to do?"  
  
Duo shook his head. This wasn't like obeying orders to destroy Oz troops - that was easy, they knew that Oz was the bad guys. Who the good guys were was open to debate, but his job was straightforward. Nothing like turning over a bunch of kids who hadn't done anything to a bunch of crazy scientists who built massive killing machines. "I don't know."  



	4. Allies

Despite the girl's words, it was two days before they saw any of the teleporters again. Then, two of them appeared at once in the middle of the living room of their current safehouse (which was different than the last one they'd visited - apparently Ami had told the truth about them being able to track Quatre). Only this time the older boy, Adam, was one of the two. He was leaning heavily on Ami's shoulder as they appeared, and Duo immediately saw the bandages wrapped around his left thigh, but he stood upright for several seconds before letting Ami help him to the couch. He wasn't Heero I-can-set-my-own-leg Yuy, but he wasn't a weakling either. Duo doubted that they'd been to a doctor to deal with the injury, and only had what pain medication you could find in stores. That was rarely as strong as the stuff they had in hospitals, so his leg must be hurting like a bitch right now.   
  
Adam kept a very careful eye on him as he sank down onto the couch, grimacing slightly. Duo was the only one in the living room at the time, watching television, but he shut it off when the teleporters appeared. He was very proud of the way he managed to keep from jumping out of his skin when they appeared. A few seconds later Quatre emerged from his room, where he'd been sleeping, recovering from a night mission. His eyes widened slightly when he saw the pair, but all he said was, "I thought I felt something."  
  
The boy... Adam's eyes fixed on Quatre, and his lips tightened slightly before he nodded to Ami.   
  
"Are you sure?" she asked, obviously continuing a conversation they'd started before they teleported in.   
  
"I'm fine," he assured her. "Go. I'll be back soon."  
  
She shot him a worried glance and then nodded shortly and vanished.   
  
"How's your leg?" Duo asked conversationally. Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of Heero, pausing just out of Adam's range of vision, a gun held ready. He gave him a silent shake of the head to let him know everything was OK.  
  
Adam turned to look at Heero for several long seconds before turning back to look at Duo. "Much better, thanks. But I'd prefer not to repeat the experience again any time soon."  
  
"First time you've been shot?" Duo asked sympathetically as Heero walked into the room, giving Adam a murderous glare.   
  
"No... ah, yes," he corrected himself. "That is... most of our enemies on our home world use tranquilizer darts. They want us alive for study. I've been shot a few times with those. On the whole, bullets hurt more," he remarked facetiously. There was also some challenge in his eyes as he watched them warily.  
  
"You couldn't teleport away in time?"  
  
Adam hesitated, shook his head. "It's not always an option. And a teleport isn't faster than a bullet." He sounded like he was speaking from personal knowledge again.  
  
"Hn."  
  
Adam looked vaguely surprised at Heero's monosyllabic grunt, then his gaze shifted to Quatre for a few seconds. Duo was interested to note that Quatre seemed to make Adam just as uncomfortable as Heero, which was very unusual. Usually Quatre was the one who people trusted, or at least opened up to, but Adam seemed to be avoiding looking at Quatre very carefully. Very weird. He seemed to be thinking that a lot about them. Adam was silent for a minute, then asked, "Where are the others?"  
  
"Out," Duo replied simply with a slight shrug, then he grimaced as his recently-dislocated shoulder protested the movement. That was the last time he was ever going to let Heero perform medicine on him. You'd think at least he could have given him some aspirin before he popped his shoulder back in. That had been two days ago, right after Jade and the other two visited, and it was still sore. At least he'd completed his mission.   
  
Adam's eyes darkened slightly, and for the first time Duo could remember, Adam didn't look like a kid. "A mission?" he asked lightly, closing his eyes briefly. Then he shook his head. "Never mind. I know you won't answer."   
  
He was silent for another minute. Finally Duo asked, "What are you doing here?"  
  
Adam sighed and looked away again. Finally he looked at Duo and asked, "Can you help us get home?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"You know we're not from this world, and you were there when we got... dragged here. Can you help us get back?" he asked, quietly intense. "Because that's all we want. We never wanted to get involved in your war, and we didn't ask to get dragged here. We just want to go back to our own world now, and as far as we can tell, you're the only ones who can help us. So far Oz has tried to capture us and they..." he smiled wryly and gestured slightly to his leg. "You were the only other ones there. So can you... will you help us?"  
  
Duo took a deep breath - this was where it got complicated. "I need to ask you a few questions before I can answer that," he told Adam.   
  
Adam's eyes grew more guarded as he narrowed them. "You're free to ask," he said, not promising to tell them anything.   
  
"That teleporting thing you do... is it mechanical? Some sort of technology from your world?" Duo was fairly certain that it wasn't, this time he just wanted to see what Adam would say.  
  
"It's not technology," Adam said uneasily.  
  
"So it's something that you're doing. Is it something that you can learn?" He was pretty sure that he knew the answer to this one, too, but it would be good to have confirmation.  
  
Adam shook his head. "It's not something you can learn... I mean, you have to learn to control it, but you can't teach... you have to be born with it. I couldn't teach you to do it. If you're born with the ability, you can learn to control it, but you can't do anything if you're not born with the ability." He paused, apparently going over something in his own mind. "Does that answer your question?"  
  
"Yeah," Duo said with a sigh. He didn't think that the doctors were going to be able to figure out what it was that was letting them do this, it sounded like it was nothing like the mechanical genius that had built the Gundams. But that wouldn't stop the doctors from experimenting on these people for a very long time. Duo glanced at Quatre and saw that he'd come to the same conclusion. "Just one more question - how do you know who... can do it, and who can't?"  
  
Adam smiled grimly. "You find out the first time you teleport. There's no way to tell before that. We knew Jade before she became... before she teleported," he quickly corrected himself. "And we didn't know she could do it too, until she did." He hesitated for a few seconds. "Why do you want to know this?"  
  
Duo sighed. "I'll level with you. We have orders to capture you and deliver you to the scientists who created the Gundams." At his words, all the color drained from Adam's face and his body became one clenched muscle. Duo quickly held up his hands before Adam could teleport away. "Wait a second! If we were going to try to grab you guys, we would have done it already. I take it this isn't the first time that this has happened to you?"  
  
Adam nodded tensely. "It's not the second time, either."  
  
Duo winced. "Yeah, I kinda guessed that too. But, if what you're doing can't be learned or copied, I don't see much point in turning you over to them, so long as you're not doing missions for Oz or the Alliance." He shrugged, and saw relief in Adam's eyes.  
  
"You're not going to try to capture us?"  
  
"I don't really want to. But as long as you're out there, there's a chance that Oz will grab you and try to use you against us. That leaves us with two options - try to catch you and turn you over to the docs, who will probably drug you and keep you there as long as possible. I'm guessing eventually you'll escape, and either join Oz to bring us down or spend the rest of your natural lives in this world hiding from everyone. That doesn't seem like a winning combination for anyone."  
  
"I can agree with that. Other option?"  
  
"We help you guys get home and then destroy the machine that brought you here, so that no one ever gets into this situation again."   
  
He saw Adam's eyes momentarily light up before becoming guarded again. "Why would you do that?"  
  
"Well, I've had some free time lately... and besides, saving lives would be a welcome change of pace," he answered carelessly, and saw Adam swallow convulsively. "You can trust me, I may do a lot of things, but I don't lie," he told him seriously.  
  
Adam looked as if he didn't believe him, but chose not to question him openly. "What are you going to do?"  
  
Duo wasn't quite ready to tell Adam that they already had the machine. "I'll talk to the others when they get back and we'll see what we can do."  
  
Adam nodded. "Thank you very much. I'm sorry if we seem... distrustful. We don't have... it's a long story."  
  
Duo shrugged. "Whatever. Look, why don't you come back tomorrow, the same time? We'll probably have something by then." By then he ought to be able to talk Heero, Wufei, and Trowa into going along with this. Hopefully.  
  
"I'll do that," Adam said quietly. He started to raise his hand, as if to shake Duo's but then quickly dropped it. "I'm sorry," he apologized. "I just can't..."  
  
"I understand," Duo said, although inwardly he was a little irritated. What the hell was it with all these people that they were afraid to touch him? It wasn't like being a killer was contagious or anything.   
  
"Thank you. I'll be back tomorrow," he told them, and disappeared.   
  
Duo flinched, waiting for Heero to threaten to kill him, but there was silence from that quarter. He opened his eyes and stared at Heero. "What? No 'omae o korosu'? Nothing about the mission? Who are you and what have you done with Heero?" he asked, only half-joking.   
  
"They're innocent," Heero said, as if that explained everything.   
  
Duo blinked. "Um, could you explain that a little?"   
  
"They're innocent, and innocence should be protected," Heero explained as if it was obvious.  
  
"Oh. And you, ah, don't have a problem with not... a finishing your mission to capture them?" Duo asked hesitantly. He was treading a thin line here - he didn't want to make Heero change his mind, but at the same time, he wanted to make sure that Heero wasn't going to come hunt him down later if he misunderstood him now.  
  
Heero blinked. Twice. He was really upset about this, Duo observed. "You were right. Completing the mission at this point would serve no purpose."   
  
"Uh-hu. Right. Thanks for clearing that up for me," Duo said quickly. He'd heard about the famous 'follow your emotions' speech that Heero had given Trowa (that was a joke - Heero-I-live-for-the-mission advising the stone-faced Trowa to follow his emotions - in fact, he had a hard time picturing them talking at all - he would have expected them to just sit around silently). Anyway, maybe this was a sort of application of that principle - if so, it would be the first Duo had seen, but he wasn't going to complain if it meant that he didn't have to fight Heero to get him to not turn those guys over to the doctors.   
  
"I'll go pull up what information we have on that machine. Maybe there's somehow we can reverse whatever they did to bring them here," Quatre said quietly into the silence that followed Duo's awkward statement.   
  
"Good idea." That would be a good joke, if they had the machine and everything but couldn't figure out how to turn the stupid thing on. Somehow he didn't think that Adam would think it was so funny. It was obvious that he was the leader of the group, and that he took his responsibilities (basically for the others) very seriously. Duo wondered if he'd complained a lot about being shot. Probably not, he didn't look like the type. He'd probably gladly accept being shot if it meant that one of the others was safe. Duo remembered feeling that way, a long time ago, after Solo died and he was the one taking care of the kids, before Maxwell Church.   
  
Duo shook his head slightly and pushed that out of his mind. If he thought too much about that stuff he'd really go crazy, or at least make himself incredibly depressed, and he didn't need that right now. Right now he had to figure out how he was going to talk Wufei and Trowa into going along with this without getting his head chopped off (Wufei) or getting a dagger between the eyes (Trowa). This was going to be interesting.  
  
----------------------------------------  
  
"Do you really think we can trust them?" Adam asked yet one more time. It was the third time he'd asked that in the past few minutes. There were only a few minutes left until he was supposed to go back and talk to the Gundam pilots, and he was very nervous. They'd all discussed their impressions of the pilots practically non-stop, some positive, some negative, but they had no sure way of knowing that this wasn't some sort of trap. This was the first time they'd gone with the pilots knowing exactly when they were arriving. If they were going to try to trap any of them, this would be the perfect time. He wasn't going to let them get close enough for them to drug him or anything, but if they shot him with tranquilizer darts, there wouldn't be much he could do about it.  
  
He didn't bother trying to get the others to promise not to try to rescue him if that happened, because he knew that if it did happen, no promise would be strong enough to keep them from coming after him. At least he'd convinced them to let him go alone. Ami wasn't happy about that for a number of reasons, but she'd let herself be convinced, eventually. He thought that the incident with the soldiers had frightened her more than she'd admit - several times during the nights since the incident she'd woken them up as they sensed her fear when she had nightmares. So far she refused to tell them what they were about, but it didn't take a genius to figure out that it had something to do with the attack on her and him getting shot. He hadn't been sleeping so well since that, either, and not just because of the pain. He kept seeing Megabyte or Jade or Ami in his place, and feeling helpless because he couldn't protect them. Compared to that, the pain was nothing.  
  
Actually, the wound was healing very well. He could walk on it now, if he really had to, and could move about quite easily with someone to aid him. He wasn't sure if his powers were working (sort of) to his aid, how much the ship had to do with it, or if it was that he'd just not been injured too badly. He'd never been shot before (for which he was very thankful), so he had no basis for comparison - he didn't even know if he was healing at a normal rate or not.   
  
"OK, it's time," he said, checking his (thankfully) waterproof watch. He used to have a watch that wasn't, but it hadn't survived being dunked in the Pacific ocean several times.   
  
Megabyte actually didn't make a smart remark, which meant that he was really, really worried, which didn't relieve Adam at all. He just gave Adam a nervous smile and a nod of encouragement. Jade gave him a quick hug, being careful not to jar his leg. Ami stared at him for a long moment without speaking, then reached out and grabbed his hand, squeezing it. Through the physical contact he could feel her worry on a number of different levels, although he tried to shield.   
  
:It's going to be all right,: he tried to reassure her.  
  
:Of course,: she agreed, both of them well aware of the fact that they were lying through their teeth.   
  
"I'll be back in a few minutes, and I'll keep updating you," he promised. "Have they moved?" he asked Jade, who'd announced that she was going to keep track of Quatre for the group. Since they wouldn't let her go see them, she wanted a way to keep involved.   
  
There was something about that... a couple of days ago both Ami and Megabyte had been giving Jade the dirtiest looks when he woke up from one of his frequent naps. They wouldn't tell him what was wrong, and he preferred not to think about it too closely, because he was certain that he didn't want to know.  
  
"Yeah, they're still there," Jade told him.  
  
Adam nodded his thanks, then concentrated on the space right in front of the couch. A moment later he was standing there.  
  
All five of the pilots were standing across the room, staring at him. This was the first time he'd been with all of them at the same time, and their presence hit him like a physical blow. Quatre was the only one who actually had any psychic powers, but they all had very strong auras - he guessed they've have to in order to do what they'd done, but it was still a lot to be hit with at once. Once again, he noticed what Ami had seen the first day - that though there was darkness in all of them, and they were killers, but they weren't evil. It was a very important distinction, and one Adam had trouble with sometimes, but it was there.  
  
He glanced behind him to make sure the couch was still there, then carefully lowered himself into the seat. Ami had promised to scalp him if he tried to do too much with his leg and injured himself.   
  
"How's you're leg?" Quatre asked, a worried frown on his face.  
  
"It's getting better," he responded, trying not to look Quatre in the eye. He couldn't help it - for him, it was even easier to accept the others than an empath who somehow managed to kill people. Quatre was the most like them of the entire group, and the very fact that he was able to kill made him strangely familiar and incomprehensible at the same time. Adam had an easier time dealing with the others.  
  
Quatre seemed to sense that and fell silent after that.  
  
:What's going on?: Megabyte asked.  
  
:Nothing yet. Be quiet, I'll tell you if anything happens,: Adam told him, and then firmly blocked him out of his mind. He didn't want the distraction right now. "Well?" he asked after a few more seconds of silence.  
  
Duo stepped forward after glancing at his companions. It seemed he was the spokesperson for the group. Actually, neither Adam nor Ami could remember ever hearing one of the others (except Quatre) speak. Adam wondered if it was him or if they were just normally quiet.   
  
"We can help you," Duo said. "Quat took a look at the machine, and... well, I don't have a clue what he's talking about, but he says that he can get you home, no problem. The reason you got pulled here in the first place is that you can teleport - apparently that's the only way to travel between worlds." He shrugged. "But you need some extra energy, or something, which is what the machine does. It acted like a beacon the first time, but by reversing something or other, it will let you get home, but you're going to have to do the actual teleporting yourselves. Got it?"  
  
"You took a look at the machine? I thought it belonged to Oz?" Adam asked, trying to keep up with the flow of information.  
  
"Well, it did," Duo said with a sheepish grin, rubbing the back of his head. "We took it the first day, after you guys got away. Figured that technology was too dangerous to leave in the hands of the enemy. So we grabbed it."  
  
Oh. Somehow Adam wasn't surprised that they'd concealed the fact that they had it from him. He probably would have done the same thing in their place - there was a whole lot that he wasn't telling them about himself or the other Tomorrow People, and wouldn't be telling them if he didn't have to. As long as they helped them get home, he didn't care how many secrets they kept.  
  
"So how long will... changing the machine take?" he asked.  
  
Duo looked vaguely surprised that Adam chose not to make an issue over the fact that he hadn't told him about the machine, but quickly recovered. "Just a few seconds," he said, waving a hand carelessly. "Just flip a few switches, and you're set to go. And we'll destroy the thing after you leave."  
  
Adam nodded. He would prefer that nothing like this ever happen again. He knew the chances of that were slim, though. Trouble seemed to find them on an astonishingly regular basis. It wasn't as if they went looking for it, it just seemed to stumble on top of them.  
  
"How soon can we leave?" he asked.  
  
"Yeah, we kinda guessed you'd feel that way," Duo told him. "Unfortunately, we stored the machine in eastern Europe."  
  
Adam frowned slightly. "Where are we now?" he asked.  
  
"You don't know?" Duo sounded surprised. "How?"  
  
Adam sighed mentally. He really didn't want to give them any more information, but they were helping them... "Teleporting doesn't work that way. You sort of picture where you want to be, and then teleport there. If you don't have some outside reference, it's impossible to tell where you are." He looked around the room. "I'm assuming we're either in America, England, or Australia, because the newspaper is in English," he said, pointing, "but I don't know any more than that. And you could have brought it in. It's usually pretty easy to figure out where you are, though."  
  
"Australia, is that where you're from?" Duo asked, eyes sharp as he analyzed the information.   
  
"Originally." Adam most definitely did not want to discuss his past.  
  
Duo must have read the warning in his voice, because he held up his hands. "It's all right, I understand - not going there," he easily agreed. "I see what Jade meant when she said that she didn't know where you were staying, now."  
  
Adam's eyes narrowed. "You saw Jade?" :Jade, when did you come out here?:  
  
:The day after Ami first came,: Jade said meekly. :And really, you don't have to tell me how incredibly stupid and pigheaded it was of me,: she added. :Ami and Megabyte have been telling me for days.:  
  
:We'll discuss this when we get home,: Adam said darkly, then turned his attention back to Duo, who was answering his question.  
  
"Yeah, right after... oh yeah! Megabyte said you were asleep! They didn't... oops." Duo grimaced.  
  
Megabyte, too? Adam made a mental note to extend that discussion to include Megabyte, too. General Damon would never forgive him if anything happened to Megabyte. Ditto for Jade and her mom. And he didn't even want to think about what Mrs. Jackson was going to say when they got back.  
  
"Thank you. Now, where are we?" Adam asked, deciding he didn't want to go into the other issue with these people.  
  
"Well, I guess it doesn't matter much to you, but we're in the northwest corner of what used to be America, before the Earth-sphere Alliance was formed," Duo told him. "It'll take us a day or two to get out there. As for you guys..."  
  
"We can teleport out there whenever you arrive," Adam told him. "As long as he's there," he nodded towards Quatre. :Tell them we can go home in a couple of days,: Adam sent to Ami. He felt her excitement and smiled slightly. "It's just when that's the problem. We don't want to teleport onto a full airplane... or however you're planning to travel," he quickly amended.  
  
"Yeah, we kinda figured that was the problem," Duo said, then fished something out of his pocket and tossed it to him. Adam reflexively caught it and looked at the little black cylinder with complete bafflement.   
  
"What's this?"  
  
"It's a very crude communicator, one-way, untraceable," Duo told him, a curious look on his face. "You don't have them?"  
  
"Our technology is... a little behind yours. We don't have colonies or mobile suits."  
  
"You don't?" Duo sounded shocked, even scandalized.  
  
"No. Yours was the first one I'd ever seen." Adam tried not to let the fear he still felt at the memory show. Sometimes having a nearly perfect memory was not as fun as you'd think.   
  
Duo grimaced. "Oh. Sorry. Anyway, it's pretty simple. When we get to the site, we'll flash you - that thing will beep and the light on the end will flash a couple times. Just keep it with you, and when it flashes, you can come over. Got it?"  
  
Adam nodded and stuck it in his pocket. "Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much." He hesitated, then added, "I misjudged you at first. I'm sorry for that."  
  
Duo looked genuinely surprised at the comment. Adam figured he didn't have too many people say stuff like that to him. The other three stood in the background, looking like a bunch of statues, and Quatre had his hand pressed against his chest, for some reason. Adam felt a slight brush against his mind and unconsciously shielded against it, then felt the touch withdraw. Of the own accord, his eyes rose to meet Quatre's.   
  
"I have to go," he said nervously, and teleported out before Quatre could say anything.  
  



	5. A Mission

"Man, Heero, you have the best taste!" Duo exclaimed as Trowa parked the truck they'd stolen to drive out here. This was the first time he'd seen the place that Heero had chosen to hide the machine. A few months ago this had been a fully operational mobile suit factory, but then one of the Gundams had torn the place apart. The Alliance abandoned it entirely when Oz rose up against them, so the place had been completely deserted for over a month now. Stupid of them, really, since there were a few halls and rooms that had been completely untouched by the destruction. If it had been Duo, he would have made sure that there was nothing left before he abandoned it, but hey, if the Alliance wanted to continue to be stupid, he wasn't going to complain.   
  
He pulled the transmitter out of his pocket and activated it. "They ought to be here in a few minutes," he told the others. "You're sure you can reverse the whatever-it-is?" Duo asked Quatre.  
  
"Yes, I'm certain," Quatre responded. They all fell silent again.   
  
A few minutes later, Adam arrived in a flash of light, looking around cautiously. When he saw only the Gundam pilots, he nodded to himself, and suddenly the others appeared around and behind him. Too bad that there's that flash of light every time, Duo found himself thinking. Would make sneaking around kinda hard. They'd make amazing assassins, otherwise.  
  
Adam put one hand on Ami's shoulder and started carefully walking forward, favoring his left leg but still making decent progress. "This is it?" he asked nervously, looking around.  
  
"Yup. It's been abandoned, so we figured that it was as safe a place as any," Duo said. Well, actually Heero had decided where to put it, but he had a feeling Heero wouldn't appreciate being singled out. They'd worked together to get it, anyway, so it kinda was a 'we'.   
  
Adam nodded distractedly, a faint frown on his face as he looked around.   
  
The little girl, Jade, walked up to one of the scorched walls and put her hand on it. She froze for a second, then pulled her hand away, shaking her head.   
  
"Jade! Are you all right?" Ami called.  
  
"Yeah, I'm fine. Did you guys destroy this place?" Jade asked the pilots.  
  
"Yeah, I did," Duo said, a little startled by her comment. "Why?"  
  
"I can feel it," Jade replied. She hesitated, then added, "I'm glad you did!"  
  
There was complete silence after that statement. Megabyte (what sort of name was that, anyway?) walked over and touched the wall right where she had, a faint frown on his face. After a few seconds he pulled it away. "She's right," he muttered. "It's... wrong. It's a good thing it was destroyed. What was this place, anyway?"  
  
"Mobile suit factory."  
  
Megabyte glanced at Adam, a slightly guilty look on his face. "Well, that makes sense, I guess." He stared at Adam for a few moments, then flushed and looked away.   
  
Duo stared at them in confusion. They were acting... strangely, that was the only word he could come up with. Megabyte's reaction seemed completely out of place, because he was acting as if Adam had yelled at him or something, but Adam had barely even looked at him. Jade was the same, and Ami... There was something very strange going on here.   
  
"Come on, this'll only take a few minutes," Duo said, gesturing towards the still-standing hallway. Sure, half of it didn't have a ceiling anymore, but it was still mostly standing, but the rooms that were still whole were down this way. "I guess you guys are happy to be going home, huh?"  
  
"My mum's going to kill me," Jade declared sadly. "I promised her that I was just going to finish my homework, and then I disappeared for a week. She's going to ground me to the end of the century."   
  
"Ground you?" Duo asked. "You mean in your room? Couldn't you just teleport out?"  
  
"She's not talking about her mom physically locking her in her room," Megabyte told him condescendingly.   
  
"Megabyte," Adam said in a warning tone.   
  
"No, she's not going to lock me in or anything," Jade continued. "But... she's my mom, you know? You have to listen to your mom." She looked at the blank faces around her. "You know, your mom? Do any of you have a mom?"   
  
Duo glanced around. He didn't know who his parents were, and he knew that Quatre had been grown in a test tube. He had a father, but not a mother. Duo didn't know much about the history of the other three, but was willing to bet that none of them had any sort of family life, not like this girl was describing. Kid doesn't even know what she's got, he thought a little sadly, not even the least bit envious. He'd gotten over that years ago. "Nah, not really," he told her, and saw her face turn beet red.   
  
"I... I'm sorry..." she stammered. "I didn't mean..."  
  
"It's all right," he told her again. "You can't miss what you never had. So you all got family waiting for you back home?" No wonder they wanted to get back so badly. Duo didn't know what family was like, the closest he'd come was when he was in Maxwell Church, but he'd been happier there than anywhere else.  
  
"Yes, except..." Jade trailed off, and Duo realized that all three of them were staring at Adam, who looked a little embarrassed by the attention.  
  
"I live on my own now," he said with a slight shrug and an expression that said that was all he was going to say on the subject. "But it will be good to get back."  
  
Heero grunted when they reached the room where he'd hidden the machine. It used to be a storage room, and still had a large number of spare suit parts, making it kind of hard to navigate, but decreasing the chances that someone would accidentally stumble onto it. Heero led them as swiftly as possible through the maze of parts, boxes, and fallen plaster to an open area that he'd cleared to put the machine in.   
  
Duo wasn't sure what it was, but something in the air made him take a second look around the room. Quatre had already moved over to the machine and was fiddling with it. Ami had left Adam leaning heavily against one of the piles and went over to look at the machine with Quatre. Heero was just standing around, glaring at everything in sight, and Wufei and Trowa were watching Jade and Megabyte. The two pilots looked confused as the two kids continuously taunted each other about the stupidest things. Probably never seen normal teasing before, he thought. But something wasn't right.   
  
Suddenly all four of the teleporters stiffened. "I have a bad feeling about this..." Ami said, looking around, sounding panicked. "Something's wrong..."  
  
Duo caught a flicker of movement that shouldn't have been there out of the corner of his eye. "Fuck!" he shouted, already reaching for his gun. Suddenly pain shot up his arm and he fell backwards, into Jade and Megabyte.   
  
"Freeze!" shouted a half-dozen voices, and Duo saw that they were surrounded. Fuck! There were over twenty soldiers surrounding them, every one with a gun pointed at their group.   
  
"Oh my God! You've been shot!" Jade squealed, pointing at his arm. She started to move forward but one of the soldiers took a step forward, aiming the gun precisely at her head.   
  
"I said freeze," he ordered angrily, and she froze.   
  
For a second they were all completely still and silent, and Duo wondered why the teleporters didn't get out of there, then he remembered something Adam had said... 'Teleporting isn't faster than a bullet.' Shit. They were really screwed.  
  
"Stand up slowly and toss your guns away," the lead man, who did not carry a gun, instructed. He had a look in his eye that Duo recognized, and did not like. 'Nother sadist who's high on power and pain. Where the hell does Oz find all of these people? As Duo slowly got to his feet, trying not to use his injured arm, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye... Adam. Standing by himself, against the pile of parts, he'd gone unnoticed by the Oz soldiers. He was now standing less than ten feet behind the commander of the soldiers, very pale, but most importantly, silent.   
  
A glimmer of an idea formed in his mind. Using his good arm, Duo slowly pulled the gun out from behind his back, holding it clearly by the handle to show that he couldn't fire it. He dropped it on the ground in front of him, then deliberately kicked it at the commander's feet. The commander danced out of the way, then swore. "You'll pay for that, brat!" he snarled, but Duo only grinned at him. The gun, already forgotten, skidded across the floor to bump into Adam's feet. For a moment Adam's wide eyes met Duo's, then Duo saw understanding and Adam bent to pick up the gun.  
  
"Oh, shit," Megabyte breathed, and Duo saw that he'd seen Adam. What was he talking about?   
  
Adam took a step forward, grimaced, then slowly raised the gun. "Let them go." His voice was calm and steady, and except for the slightly nauceous look on his face, he looked completely in control. Or he would have, except that his hand, the one holding the gun, was trembling so badly that even at that distance, if he pulled the trigger, he only had a fifty-fifty shot of hitting anything.   
  
The commander turned around, and the expression on his face when he realized that there was a gun aimed at him was hilarious. He quickly regained his composure, especially when he saw the wavering gun. "And what are you going to do if I don't?" he asked snidely.   
  
Adam didn't blink. "Just let them go. This has nothing to do with your war." The gun in his hand began to tremble more violently.  
  
"If you shoot me my men will kill you." The man paused for a moment, then smiled. "I don't believe you could do it, anyway. Look at yourself - your hand is already shaking like a leaf."   
  
Adam stared at him, then at his own hand, which now looked as if he was going through convulsions. Suddenly his eyes went past the commander to the three members of his group, who stiffened as his eyes rested on them. "I..." Adam started to say, then grimaced as his hand began to drift away from the commander's head. "I..." He swallowed. "I can't!" he cried, sounding very frustrated, and suddenly flung the gun away from himself. In the next instant he threw himself at the commander, wrestling him to the floor.  
  
For a few seconds, everyone just stared at him. You didn't throw a gun away to attack someone with your bare hands (unless you were Wufei, but that was another matter entirely) - it just didn't make any sense.   
  
Duo suddenly realized that all of the guards were staring at Adam, not at them, but before he could do anything to take advantage of this fact, he felt a slight weight hit him. The next thing he knew, he was falling.  
  
Then he hit water - very cold water - and was suddenly in over his head, and he hissed in pain as salt water hit the open wound on his arm. That turned out to be a mistake as he sucked in a mouthful of water instead of air. What the fuck...  
  
Reacting entirely on instinct, he kicked his feet until his head cleared the surface. He took a deep gasping breath and looked around. He was in the ocean, that was for sure - the water stretched out in all directions as far as he could see. The only land he could see was a small island about a hundred feet away. There were a number of figures on the shore.   
  
Suddenly a head surfaced next to him, and he almost jumped out of his skin before he recognized Jade. She didn't look at all surprised to be there, but as he watched, her face drained of all color and she shrieked, "Adam!" at the top of her lungs, both hands pressing at her skull. Her head went under water for a second, then she resurfaced, a dazed look on her face. She looked around for a second, then at him, and then her eyes grew wide. "You're bleeding!"  
  
He realized that the water around them was beginning to be stained sort of red by the blood from his arm.   
  
"Hang on," she told him, suddenly latching onto his arm.   
  
"What are you..." he started to say, but then there was a flash of light, and solid ground under his feet. He wasn't ready for it, so he dropped to his knees before he realized what was happening. He was now standing (kneeling) on the sandy beach he'd observed before, next to Jade (who was still on her feet), Megabyte and Ami. The rest of the pilots were standing a little way down the beach, looking as confused as he felt.   
  
Jade suddenly burst into tears, throwing herself at Ami, who responded with a fierce hug, ignoring the fact that Jade was sopping wet. "They've got him!" Jade sobbed. "They hurt him!"  
  
"I know," Ami said softly, "don't worry, we'll get him back."  
  
"Would someone please tell me what the fuck is going on here?" Duo demanded, looking around. "What the hell just happened? Where are we? Why am I all wet?"  
  
"We teleported you out of there," Ami explained after the three exchanged a glance.  
  
"You what?! I thought that you could only teleport yourselves!"  
  
Ami grimaced. "We can teleport a little more than our own bodyweight with us, if we concentrate on it. You're lucky that the five of your are so small, normally Adam's the only one who can teleport two people at once."  
  
"All right, so you teleported all of us. Where are we now?" Duo asked slowly, trying not to start screaming at all of them.  
  
"We're on an island somewhere in the South Pacific," Ami told him. "We don't know exactly where. The only reason we know that much is because Adam's done some studying of the stars, which constellations are visible and everything, and..." she trailed off. "Anyway, that's where we are, approximately."  
  
"And this is what you meant when you said that you didn't know where you were?" he asked Jade, who was starting to shiver. He wasn't feeling to warm himself, but the burning sensation in his arm was keeping him warm enough for now.   
  
Jade nodded.  
  
"And this is where you've been staying?"  
  
She nodded again.   
  
"All right. Next question. Why the hell am I all wet?"  
  
Ami looked at Jade, who grimaced. "Ah, that's my fault. If you don't visualize well, you end up falling in the water. I didn't visualize before I teleported this time."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because I was more nervous about the guns than about visualizing well!" she snapped.  
  
"Why do you end up in the ocean if you don't visualize well? Why not the beach, or just stay put?" Ami and Jade exchanged another glance, and Duo could practically see what they were thinking. "Oh no, not after you dumped me and the open wound on my arm in salt water. You're going to tell me exactly what the hell you're talking about. Now, why do you end up in the water?"  
  
Ami sighed. "We might as well go inside to discuss this. We've got some blankets and we can treat the wound on your arm."  
  
"Inside? Inside where?"  
"The ship." There was something strange about the way she said it, a particular emphasis she put on the second word that he didn't understand.   
  
"What ship?" he looked around, but didn't see anything but dunes and palm trees.  
  
"It's over there," Megabyte said, pointing. "It's mostly buried."   
  
Duo turned and looked, and saw something that might have been some sort of wing (or fin) sticking up out of one of the dunes. It also didn't resemble any sort of ship he'd ever seen. Something occurred to him - there was no sign of violence, so the ship hadn't crashed and been buried that way. It must have been buried that way over many, many years. And ships hadn't been around that long. "What sort of ship is that?"  
  
"It's... a long story. And we don't know exactly where it's from or when it got here, but it was a very long time ago. And the ship... it has a beacon on it that pulls in new teleporters. If you don't visualize well, the beacon pulls you here, anywhere within a five-hundred foot radius of the ship. We think that the beacon is actually supposed to pull you to the ship, but something malfunctioned over the years. When you learn to teleport, you have to learn to overcome the beacon, or you just end up back in the ocean." Ami held out a hand. "Come on, we'll take you inside."  
  
Duo backed up a step. "Ah, is there any other way to do it that doesn't involve teleportation?"  
  
Ami glanced at the others again. "Ah, I guess you can use the emergency escape hatch to get in - it's the only thing that's not buried... but it would be kind of rough on your arm right now."  
  
"Let's see it," Duo said stubbornly. Ami shrugged slightly and started walking across the sand, one arm around Jade's shoulders, comforting her. Megabyte gave them a glare, and then followed. Duo glanced at his fellow pilots. "You guys all right?"  
  
"How's your arm?" Quatre asked in response.   
  
"I'll live."  
  
"The ship couldn't possibly have been made by humans," Trowa observed in a low voice.   
  
Heero grunted agreement.  
  
Duo looked over at the three, who were now waiting for them, expectant looks on their faces. "I guess we might as well go inside," he said and then started after them. The entire situation was ridiculous - he was a trained terrorist, he couldn't be afraid of a bunch of kids who'd probably never held a gun in their lives. But then, they were the ones who'd teleported him here, who were headed for an alien ship with every appearance of familiarity with it. They looked like normal kids, but that was no guarantee of anything, was it? He really wished he hadn't thought of that - it just made him more nervous.   
  
Ami walked directly up to the surface of the ship, which was unlike any metal he'd ever seen, and waved her hand over a particular spot. Suddenly part of the metal slid away, revealing a hole about four feet in diameter. "There you go," she said, a skeptical expression on her face as she waved at the hole.  
  
"And this leads inside?" Duo asked, looking at the black hole.  
  
"Yes. Are you sure that you don't want us to just teleport you inside? It's no problem."  
  
"Yes, please," Quatre said suddenly, stepping forward and extending his hand. Then he took a firm hold of Duo's good arm. Duo looked at him in surprise, then Quatre gave him a *look*. Suddenly a thought crashed into his head, and Duo could have kicked himself. They had no idea if this 'escape hatch' led to the inside of the ship or a cell of some sort. At least if they teleported, they knew that the kids would be with them. Unless they could somehow drop them off... He pushed that thought out of his mind.   
  
"Sure," he said, giving Jade his biggest smile. She looked at him, suspicious of the sudden change in attitude, then gently touched his shoulder.   
  
"I'm really sorry about before," she said quickly. "I don't usually panic like that. It won't be so bad this time." There was a flash of light and suddenly he was in darkness. Duo felt a stab of panic before he realized that it wasn't really as dark as he thought, only in comparison to the bright sun outside. Then a huge column in the middle of the room lit up slightly... and moaned at them. That was the only description that Duo could come up with for the sound that seemed to resonate in his bones, making him shudder. Jade placed one hand on the column and murmured, "It's OK, they're friends. We're fine."   
  
"You talk to it?" Duo asked, vaguely amused as the rest of the groups arrived.  
  
"Its... alive, sort of," Jade said, patting the column fondly.   
  
"Alive?" Quatre asked, looking around and shivering.  
  
"Well, not exactly," Ami said, walking over to one of the walls and picking up a blanket, which she wrapped around Jade's shoulder. She picked up a second and handed it to him. "It's... aware of us. We can communicate with it, sort of. It's difficult to explain. Do you want me to take a look at your arm?" she asked, pointing to the neat pile of medical supplies, right next to the first-aid kit he'd given her. "I took care of Adam..."  
  
"No, that's all right, I can do it," he told her, moving over to the supplies. He rolled up his shirt and started cleaning the wound. Luckily, the bullet hadn't become imbedded in his arm. He started talking to distract himself. "Actually, if you could take us back to our safe house, that would be great."  
  
"Ah, we can't. Not yet," she quickly qualified her statement.  
  
"Not yet?"   
  
"Teleporting that much weight, that far... it gets tiring. I don't think we could get you guys off the island right now. In a few hours we'll be able to," Ami said, her eyes distant.   
  
"You will?"  
  
"Yes. We can take you back to the last safe house, if that's all right," she said, her voice politely distant.  
  
"Then what are you going to do?"  
  
Her lips tightened to a thin line, and her eyes hardened slightly. "Then we're going to go get Adam back."  
  
Wufei snorted. "You might as well leave that weakling with Oz. He won't do them any good."   
  
Ami suddenly spun around, a horrified expression on her face. "What did you say?" she demanded angrily.   
  
"He's a weakling. You're better off without him. He was so frightened he was shaking like a baby."  
  
While Duo was not happy with what Adam had done back there, and wanted an explication, but disagreed with Wufei's interpretation. Adam hadn't been shaking because of fear. He'd been frightened, sure, and something made his hand shake like that, but it wasn't fear. Just what it had been was beyond him, though, and he wanted answers.  
  
"He wasn't shaking because of fear!" Megabyte yelled at Wufei, his face red. "You asshole! You don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about! He told us to rescue you! If it wasn't for him, you'd be..." he trailed off, his face paling rapidly as he realized that he'd said too much.   
  
"He told you? How?" Duo asked sharply, and Megabyte looked at the floor, a sullen expression on his face. "Oh, no, we discussed this before. We're beyond the we-aren't-telling-you stage. We passed that when I got dumped in the fucking ocean! Whatever secrets you're keeping could have gotten us killed back there, and it got your friend captured! Now... what the hell are you?"  
  
There was a long - very long - silence. The three teleporters stood absolutely still, eyes distant. It was as if they weren't really there at all. Just before he was about to demand answers again, they all blinked at exactly the same time. Megabyte muttered something under his breath and turned away, and Jade pulled the blanket a little tighter around her and pulled back into a corner.   
  
"We're Tomorrow People," Ami told him. "We're the next stage of human evolution. That's why we can do all the things we can..." she trailed off.  
  
"All the things? Not just teleport?"  
  
She shook her head. "We can all teleport, but we're also connected telepathically. We can talk into each other's minds. Distance isn't a factor - when I came to visit you, I could talk to the others as easily as when I was in the same room as them. We can all do that - that's part of how we know each other. And we each have individual skills."  
  
"Individual skills?" he asked, thinking that this telepathic communication explained a lot about why they acted the way they did most of the time: those distracted looks, the feeling that they weren't all the way there...  
  
Ami looked even more uncomfortable. "I... am more sensitive to auras than most people, even among us. Sometimes I also have dreams... they're about the future."  
  
"You're a prophet?" Quatre asked, and her eyes widened.  
  
"No, nothing like that! I just... they're little hints about the future, sometimes. It's hard to tell if it's really something or just me being nervous. Like I had a bad feeling before we approached the soldiers... I thought I was just nervous about it."  
  
"And you can all do that?" Duo asked.  
  
"No, just me. Jade..." she trailed off, her eyes traveling to the other girl.  
  
"I can sometimes read people's minds. Normal people, not just Tomorrow People," she added. "It depends on the person and the situation. I'm the one who tracked Quatre. With the ship's help."  
  
Duo decided not to ask how the ship had helped her, just yet. "And you?" he asked Megabyte.   
  
Megabyte glared at him. "I can do weird things with electronic stuff, like open locks."  
  
"And Adam can heal people. Sometimes," Ami added. "It comes and goes. He couldn't heal himself this time."  
  
"OK..." Duo said slowly. "So Adam told you to save us, then tackled the guy to get everyone's attention so you could teleport us out. That doesn't explain why he couldn't handle the gun."  
  
"There's another part of being a Tomorrow Person that we didn't tell you," Ami said with another glance at the other two. "We can't kill."  
  
He looked at her. "You can't kill?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Not at all?"  
  
She shook her head. "No, nothing more intelligent than a bug. No killing at all, not even in self-defense."   
  
"You're Absolute Pacifists?" Duo asked. He couldn't believe they were making such a fuss over a political movement, any more than he could understand those who followed that movement. Pacifism was all well and good, but not when it led you to getting yourself killed.  
  
"Yes," Ami nodded.  
  
"No!" Megabyte said sharply from his corner. He stared at Ami silently for several seconds.  
  
Her eyes grew wide. "Oh, no! It's not a political philosophy! We really can't kill anyone!"  
  
Duo's eyes narrowed. "Would you mind explaining that?"  
  
"It isn't a choice with us. We just physically can't kill people. And Adam's the worst of us - he couldn't do it before he broke out, even to save his life."  
  
"Broke out?"  
  
She sighed. "That's what we call it when we first become Tomorrow People. You go through a period of stress, or some sort, and to get out of it, you teleport. You don't know how to do it, really, so you end up in the water off the island, and you can't leave until you learn how to overcome the beacon."  
  
"I still don't understand this whole not-killing thing. Killing is always a choice - not always the right choice, but still a choice."  
  
"No it's not," Ami insisted. She probably would have said more, but Megabyte suddenly stepped forward.  
  
"I'll show you. Give me your gun," he said to Quatre, holding his hand out.  
  
"Gun?" Quatre asked, looking innocent.  
  
"Yeah, I'm not blind. I saw you grab it off the floor before I teleported. Besides that, I can feel the damn thing. Give it to me, I'll show you what I mean." He paused for a second, then said sarcastically, "Don't worry, I'm not going to shoot you. I can't." There was a lot of disgust and self-loathing in his voice.  
  
Quatre shrugged, then removed his gun from under his vest and handed it to Megabyte, who winced as the metal touched his fingers. "OK," he said, taking deep breaths, as though even holding the gun was an action that required intense concentration for him. "Jade?"  
  
"No, I can do this," Ami said, eyeing the gun nervously.  
  
"You've done enough," Jade said gravely, stepping forward. "I'm not as sensitive. I can handle it better." She looked at the gun in Megabyte's hand and then averted her eyes. "Just do it."  
  
"Watch," Megabyte told them, and then started raising his hand. The moment that it was aimed anywhere in the vicinity of her feet, his hand began to tremble violently, and the higher he raised it, the more it shook. He never even made it to her chest - as his aim reached her stomach, he suddenly flung the gun away from him, just the way Adam had. Quatre silently went and retrieved the gun.  
  
"The safety was on," he said quietly, holding it out and then putting it back in the holster.   
  
"Like I could tell," Megabyte muttered. "I can barely hold the stupid thing... it's hard to learn a lot about guns that way."  
  
"So that happens any time any of you hold a gun?" Duo asked.  
  
"We can't kill - a gun is just a tool. But yes, it does happen whenever we hold a weapon, of any kind," Ami said, twisting the edge of her shirt. Suddenly she looked at Megabyte, a worried expression on her face. "It wasn't your fault," she murmured. "It's who we are."  
  
"Who we are almost got him killed!" Megabyte shouted at her. Duo got the impression that they weren't talking about Adam. "Because I couldn't pull the damn trigger..."  
  
Quatre gasped softly. "Who... what happened?" he asked.  
  
Ami and Megabyte turned to look at him as if they'd forgotten the presence of the others, then Ami dropped her eyes to the ground. "Adam told you there are situations that we can't teleport out of... sometimes we don't want people to find out about us, but there are people who already know about us and what we can do. And the way they keep us from teleporting is they grab someone close to us and hold them hostage. Actually, we had one of us leave because she didn't want to put her mother in danger."  
  
"How can you leave if you're born..." Quatre started to say, then trailed off.  
  
"You just pretend that you're not different," Megabyte told him bitterly. "We're not that different from normal humans. If you don't use your powers, and stay out of any situation where you might have to kill someone, we're indistinguishable from normal humans." He frowned and bit his lip. "Sometimes they grab people close to you and say they'll... do things to them if you don't do what they say. There was this guy who was trying to build the perfect soldiers, and wanted to use us... He had my dad, and he was going to kill him... and I had a gun. I aimed it at him, somehow... and I couldn't pull the trigger. I just stood there... I couldn't do anything to stop him!" His voice was full of helpless rage, and Duo knew that this was something for which he'd been blaming himself for a long time. "He... got away, no thanks to me, because I can't kill. He was in the danger in the first place because of me. And because of what we are, I can't even wish it was different!" he finished angrily.  
  
"Megabyte..." Ami started to say, but he shot her a murderous glance and disappeared. She sighed. "Don't worry, he won't go far. Just up top for a while. He... there have been times when it has been very hard on all of us. We're only human, after all."  
  
Duo automatically glanced at Heero, who'd been watching the entire incident with his usual non-expression. They really were innocents. They couldn't kill, ever. They'd never had to know what it felt like, how you felt so dirty... For a brief moment he envied them. Then something Megabyte had said caught his attention. "What did he mean, he couldn't even wish it was different?" he asked quietly.  
  
"Oh. That. It only happens after you break out. The longer you're a Tomorrow Person, the more... it becomes more than just not being able to kill. It becomes so that you can't even understand the concept of killing, not really. You can't understand how a person could possibly kill another, the very thought is... incomprehensible. Adam was unable to kill, even to protect himself, before he broke out, and he's been a Tomorrow Person longer than any of us. I'm kind of surprised he could hold the gun at all, much less point it at anyone. But there's no way he could ever have pulled the trigger."  
  
And he knew that the second I kicked the gun to him, Duo realized. Shit. This one little fact they'd avoided mentioning before - about them not being able to kill - changed his entire view of the older boy. How much guts did it take to throw yourself at people with guns, knowing that you had no way to strike back? Those times that he'd fought off the soldiers, first in the woods and later on the streets... Duo had always wondered whether it was courage or fear that had prompted Adam's actions, and now he knew. "So he did all of that... just to give you guys a chance to get away?"  
  
Ami nodded, and Jade made a face. "Adam can be a little overprotective, sometimes," the little girl said. "He'd rather get himself hurt than see any of us in the same position. It's frustrating sometimes. I mean, does he think that we don't worry about him?!" At that, she looked ready to burst into tears again. Ami reached out and touched her shoulder gently.   
  
"Where is he now?" Wufei asked grumpily.   
  
"We don't know," Ami said, speaking for the group.  
  
"How can that be?" Quatre asked. "I thought you could always talk to each other."   
  
"Not if he's unconscious," Ami said quietly. "They hit him on the back of the head right after we teleported." Duo noticed Jade reached up to touch a certain point on the back of her head.  
  
"You can tell that from here?" Trowa asked. It was the first thing he'd said since they'd been teleported.   
  
"We all felt it," Ami said with a wince, reaching up to touch the exact same spot on her own head. "We're always linked... aware of each other," she clarified. "Even when we're not actually talking. That way we know if something happens to anyone else, anywhere in the world, the instant it happens."  
  
"As Megabyte would say, it's a little rough on privacy, but you get used to it," Jade piped up. She blushed as everyone turned to look at her, then picked up a few items of clothing off the floor. "I'm going to go change," she murmured, then hurried into the other room.   
  
An uneasy silence followed, and Duo busied himself looking around the room. It looked as if someone had cleaned it up, a little, sweeping the sand into piles and organizing the various items that they'd acquired. He caught sight of a small piece of paper on top of one pile of blankets. "What's that?"  
  
Ami followed his eyes to the paper. "Oh. Just a little note. To any Tomorrow People that arrive here, explaining who we were, and who they are. No one else is ever going to find this place, so it seemed safe enough." That one comment told him a lot about how they lived, constantly hiding their abilities from those around them. "Adam thought it might be nice for them to have something here to dry off with when they arrive, and someone to explain it to them. He had to figure it all out the first time."   
  
Duo nodded. "Make sense to me. How many of you people are there, anyway? I'm guessing you're not a majority, if the government was trying to find you."  
  
"Six."  
  
"Six?" He'd been guessing a few hundred. Six?  
  
"Yes... well, Lisa isn't really a Tomorrow Person anymore, and Kevin's parents won't let him be. It's basically the four of us. But you never know when another might break out."   
  
"It's just the four of you?"  
  
"Yes. But we have some friends who help us, and want to protect us." She smiled slightly as Jade reappeared, dressed in dry clothes. "Do you want to change?"  
  
"Nah, I'm fine. What now?"  
  
"Well, you're welcome to whatever we have to eat, or we can take you back up to the surface until we can take you back to your safe house."  
  
"And what about Adam?"  
  
"When he wakes up, he can teleport back here, if they haven't drugged him. If he can't teleport here himself, as long as he's awake, we'll go get him."  
  
"Then what?"  
  
"We'll figure something out." She gave him a small smile. "We always do."  
  
"And what about us?"  
  
"Thank you for your help, we really appreciate it."  
  
"Hey! Who said that we're giving up? We said we're going to get you home, and we're going to do it!" he told her forcefully, glancing at his fellows for support.  
  
"Mission," Heero said firmly, effectively ending the debate.   
  
Ami stared at him in confusion, then shrugged. "Thank you," she repeated, this time more forcefully. "Um, do you want to stay in here, or go to the surface?"   
  
"Can you take us to the surface, or will it tire you out too much?" Duo asked.  
  
"No, the distance here is so short, it doesn't make a difference," Ami told him. "It's the distance that tires us out. Which is sort of strange, actually, because we can teleport ourselves wherever we want without getting tired. It's only with other people that we have that problem."   
  
"Oh."   
  
"Hang on a second," she told him, and put an arm on his shoulder. A few seconds later they were standing on the sand outside the ship. "I'll be back." She disappeared again as Jade reappeared, holding Quatre's hand. Then she vanished as Ami appeared with Heero and Trowa, then Jade arrived with Wufei.   
  
"See, that wasn't so bad," she told Wufei, gently teasing. Duo hoped that Wufei didn't take that as an insult and try to chop her head off.   
  
Suddenly both Ami and Jade stiffened and turned their heads in the same direction. "Megabyte!" Ami called out loud as Megabyte appeared. Without communicating out loud, the three of them formed a circle and help up their hands so that their palms were touching. A ball of blue light appeared in the center of their circle.   
  
"Um, Quatre, do you know what they're doing?"   
  
"Concentrating very hard on something."  
  
That helped. "How do you know?"  
  
"I can feel it. There's vast power there..." Even as he said it, they suddenly let their hands fall, and the blue light disappeared.   
  
"What was that?"  
  
"We thought we felt Adam waking up, but he must have drifted off again before we could find him," Ami explained, rubbing her head.  
  
"And the blue light?"  
  
"Blue light? Oh, that's a mind link - we're stronger together than apart, so we were working together to find Adam. It's hard to find someone who's not trying to be found. I think they are drugging him." She frowned in concern.  
  
"Then how did you feel him?"  
  
"He was trying to wake up."  
  
"How do you know that?"  
  
"Because Adam's not a morning person. He always feels that way when he's trying to wake up," Megabyte explained. Jade elbowed him in the side.   
  
"You can feel each other waking up?" Duo asked. Talk about no privacy.  
  
"Yup. And when we're angry or nervous, and when we have nightmares. In fact, we tend to share nightmares if we aren't careful. And if we don't do that, we do know when we have nightmares, and what they're about. Isn't that right, Jade?" he asked, a mischievous smile on his face.  
  
"Megabyte, don't you dare..." Jade warned.  
  
"You know what Jade's really scared of?" Megabyte asked. "Barney." He grinned.  
  
Duo glanced at the other pilots to see if they recognized the reference. When they all shook their heads, he asked, "What's a Barney?"  
  
"Ha!" Jade shouted. "I told you there was something good about this world! They don't know who Barney is!"  
  
"You would think that was important, kid," Megabyte scoffed.   
  
"Oooo! You..." Jade picked up a large handful of mud and threw it at Megabyte, who dodged.  
  
"You're going to have to do better than that, kid... agh!" he shouted as she picked up another handful of dirt, teleported behind him, and then dumped it down the back of his shirt. "I'm going to get you for that!" he shouted, grabbing up some mud himself. Jade shrieked and disappeared, only to reappear several hundred feet down the shore. Megabyte disappeared to follow her.  
  
Duo turned to Ami. "What's a Barney?"  
  
"Trust me, you don't want to know."  
  
"OK." Duo was quite willing to settle down in the warm sand and watch the two kids chasing each other around, throwing dirt. It was kinda cute.  
  
Wufei didn't share his opinion. He sniffed and muttered, "Children," in the most derogatory tone he could manage.  
  
Duo ignored him - he was used to Wufei's attitude. He had a few ideas of his own as to what caused it, but ultimately, it didn't matter, it was part of who Wufei was. Duo understood that and accepted it, which was why he got caught by surprise when Ami planted her hands on her hips and asked, "And what's wrong with that?"  
  
Everyone stared at her. "What?" Wufei sputtered after a full minute had passed.  
  
"What is wrong with them acting like that? They're worried about Adam, and this is how they forget it for a little while."  
  
"Such behavior..."  
  
"They are children, so they're acting like children," Ami continued, cutting him off. "Last I checked, there wasn't a law against that. I don't even think there's a law against adults acting like children. And I'm quite certain that there isn't a law against smiling, but you seem dead set against that, too."  
  
Wufei's mouth dropped open. Then it opened and closed several times. Finally one word came out, and it sounded like a curse. "Onna!"  
  
Ami looked at Duo. "What did that mean?" she demanded.  
  
"Woman," Duo said, quickly deciding that he'd rather have Wufei mad at him than this girl. Woman.   
  
"What's that supposed to mean?" Ami demanded, eyes narrowing.  
  
"Such behavior is disgraceful!"  
  
"What? No it's not! It's called childhood, and just because you guys didn't get one doesn't mean that no one should!"   
  
Wufei stared at her, then snarled something in Chinese and stalked off.  
  
"What did he say," she asked again.  
  
"I don't know," Duo said. She glared at him and he held up both of his hands. "Honest! I don't know what he said!"  
  
"I probably shouldn't have done that," she said after a moment's thought.   
  
Heero actually snorted, then wandered off. Duo stared after him in confusion. It wasn't possible that the Perfect Soldier should have a sense of humor, was it?   
  
"He'll be all right," Quatre said, taking off his shoes and digging his toes into the warm sand. "While we're waiting, do you mind if we talk?"  
  
"Well, it depends what about," Ami said with a nervous laugh.  
  
"Would you tell me about your world?"  
  
"It's not that interesting," she demurred.  
  
"We've never seen it. Please?" Quatre asked, blinking those blue eyes at her and giving her a dazzling smile. Like so many other people, she gave in to that smile.   
  
"Oh, all right. What do you want to know?"  
  



	6. Goodbye

When Adam started to wake up, the first thing he was aware of was voices.  
  
"...be a fascinating case study. Do you see all the activity in that part of the neural cortex?"  
  
"I've never seen anything like it. Can you imagine if we could stimulate that sort of activity in some of our people?"  
  
"They're talking about using that machine to bring in some more of them, you know, the one they brought in yesterday? I heard that..."  
  
The voices were getting fainter now, as if the speakers were moving away. Adam heard a door close, and then it was silent. Adam cracked open one eye, then closed it just as quickly. The light was too bright. It was blinding him. After a few seconds he realized that if he was ever going to figure out where he was, he had to open his eyes. He hesitated a few seconds as he tried to remember why it was important to find out where he was, why he needed to know that at all, but he seemed to be having trouble focusing on anything, more so than was usual in the morning.   
  
He opened his eyes again, wincing until his eyes adjusted, then he looked around. He was lying in a bed in an all-white room that vaguely reminded him of a hospital. What was he doing in a hospital? He started to raise a hand to scratch his head, but stopped when he realized that he couldn't move his hands. He looked down and realized that he was tied to the bed. There was a thick strap across his chest, one around each wrist, and one around each ankle. Not good.  
  
He let his head fall back to the pillow, his eyes traveling around the room once more. He stared at the stand next to him and saw an IV bag hanging from it, the tube running down to the needle in his right arm. It took him some time to figure out what that meant. They're drugging me, he finally figured out. That was very bad, but he couldn't quite remember why right now. Whatever they were giving him, it was making it very difficult to concentrate. And that was very bad also, but he still couldn't remember why. He lay quietly on the bed and tried to remember.  
  
:Adam?: said a voice in his head, very distant and faint. He blinked. What was that?  
  
:Adam?: repeated the voice, and this time he recognized it.  
  
:Ami!: he thought happily. Ami would be able to tell him what was wrong.  
  
:Where are you?: she asked.   
  
:A white room,: he told her promptly. :Looks sort of like a hospital, but not. But something's wrong. Do you know what's wrong?:  
  
Ami was quiet for a minute. :Adam, are they drugging you?: she asked slowly. :I mean, do you feel funny at all?:  
  
:They're drugging me,: he told her obediently. :I can see the drip-drip bag.:  
  
:An IV?: she asked.   
  
:Yeah, that's it! It's bad, but I can't remember why. Do you know why that's a bad thing?: he asked.   
  
:Yes I do, it's so you can't teleport. Listen, Adam, I need you to do something for me.:  
  
:Sure!:  
  
:I need you to look around the room very closely and get a picture of it in your mind.:  
  
:Why?:  
  
:Adam, it would take too long to explain right now, but I need you to do this. Are there any people there with you?:  
  
:No, they left.:  
  
:They left you alone?:  
  
:Yup.:   
  
:Is the door locked?:  
  
:I don't know.:  
  
:Can you check?:  
  
:Nope.:  
  
:Why not?:  
  
:They got me strapped down to the bed.:  
  
There was another pause. :All right, Adam, I just need you to look at the room very carefully. Can you do that?:  
  
:Yup.: He raised his head and stared at the room for several minutes. It was hard to concentrate, but he worked very hard.   
  
After a long time Ami said, :All right! We got it! Here we come!:  
  
:What?: Suddenly there were multiple flashes of light and a lot of people appeared. "Wow," he commented out loud.   
  
"Shhh," Ami murmured, placing a hand over his mouth. She undid the strap across his chest, then reached for the needle in his arm. "Just stay still, this may sting a little," she murmured, and then gently pulled it out.   
  
Adam frowned. It did sting a little, but there was another hurt in the room, much worse. His eyes fell on the boy with really long brown hair who was untying his wrists. He saw a bandage on the boy's right arm. "Hurt," he said, grabbing the boy's wrist so he couldn't move away.   
  
"Huh?" the boy asked. Adam passed his hand over the bandage. His hand glowed golden yellow for a few seconds, and then he smiled to himself.  
  
"Hurt gone."  
  
The boy's eyes widened, and he moved his arm around. "Ah, yeah, hurt gone. But you know, there's another hurt."  
  
"Where?"  
  
"Right there," the boy said, pointing to Adam's thigh. "Can you heal that one?"  
  
Adam passed his hand over his own thigh, saw it glow again, and suddenly his head was a lot clearer. He blinked and rubbed it, concentrating on his healing power, and the vague feeling disappeared entirely. His head snapped up. "Are you guys all right?" he asked immediately.  
  
"We're fine," Ami told him. "How are you?"  
  
"Fine, now, thanks to him," Adam said, looking at Duo. "How did you know?"  
  
"I didn't," Duo said, stepping back. "I just figured that as long as your healing powers were working, you might as well fix your own leg. I kinda hoped it would help bring you down, but I wasn't sure."  
  
"It did. Thank you." :You told them?:  
  
:Yes... everything. They deserved to know.:   
  
"And thanks for healing my arm. Feels good as new."  
  
Adam nodded in response to both comments. "Yes, well, it would be better if it worked all the time, but when it does work, it is helpful." He swung his legs around off the bed and started to stand up. Ami and Duo caught him as his legs refused to cooperate.  
  
"You know healing exhausts you!" Ami scolded gently.  
  
"I'll be fine," he assured them as the strength began to return to his legs.  
  
"We'd better go back to the island," Ami said worriedly, glancing at the other Gundam pilots, who were standing by the door, guns held ready.   
  
"No, wait!" he exclaimed. "I heard something... when I was out of it..." he concentrated, sifting through the hazy memories from when he was still drugged. He didn't really understand how his healing powers had gotten the drugs out of his system so quickly, but he didn't really understand how any of his powers worked, and he wasn't complaining. There was something he'd heard while he was out... 'using that machine to bring in more, you know, the one they brought in yesterday...' "The machine is here!"  
  
Everyone stared at him. "I heard a couple of the... whoever they were... talking right after I woke up. They said that they were going to try to bring more of us in, and that they brought the machine in yesterday!"  
  
Megabyte snorted his opinion of them being able to bring in more Tomorrow People - there weren't that many of them around. At least, not yet - Adam maintained the hope that they were just the first of many. "So how are we going to find it? I don't think wandering around and asking for directions is going to get us anywhere."  
  
"I might be able to get it out of someone," Jade said hesitantly. "But I need to be able to touch them."  
  
"That's not going to be a problem," Quatre said, peering out the small window in the door. "There are a couple of guys in lab coats coming this way. I think they're coming to check on Adam. Can you use them?"  
  
Jade swallowed. "Ah, yeah, sure."  
  
"Does it matter if they're unconscious or not?"  
  
Jade hesitated, then shook her head. "I don't think so. It might be easier, actually."   
  
Quatre nodded grimly, flattening himself against the wall. "Good. Get back so they can't see you. Adam..."  
  
Adam nodded, seeing what he wanted, and lay back down, arranging the straps so that they looked like he was still restrained and the IV tube so that it looked like it was still in his arm. :Get against the wall,: he told the others.  
  
:Gee, and I was planning to stand her and offer to let them drug me too,: Megabyte said sarcastically as he moved to stand against the wall. Ami joined him, and Jade crouched behind his bed, out of sight. Adam allowed his eyes to grow vague and stared at the ceiling.  
  
At the very bottom of his field of vision, he saw a face briefly peer through the window, then the door opened inward. "See? He's awake. Sort of," one of the men was saying as the two of them stepped inside. Almost instantly Heero and Duo were on them, knocking them out with well-placed blows to the head. Adam winced involuntarily and sat up as the door closed. That's how the soldiers had knocked him out after he tackled the leader.   
  
Duo was checking the pulse on the man he'd hit. "He'll be fine," he reported, dragging the man over to the bed and then lifting him onto it. "Can you do him?" he asked Jade, who'd stood up when Adam got out of the bed.  
  
"I'll try," she said, laying her hand on the unconscious man's forehead. She frowned slightly and her mind suddenly became inaccessible to his, indicating intense concentration. "OK," she murmured after a few seconds. "It's all here. We're not in a base, really, we're in a research facility maintained by the government." Adam felt his stomach clench as he realized how close he'd come to being someone's experiment. "We're in a fairly large city... hey, it's London! Anyway, they've emptied the entire floor, it's just us. The machine is down the hall, not too far from here..."  
  
"Guards?" Heero grunted.  
  
"Very few... none on this floor right now, but there will be one coming by to check in twenty minutes or so. There are a few of them patrolling some of the other floors, but that's it. No one at the front door, either."  
  
"Any back exits?" Duo asked.  
  
"What? Why?" Jade asked, momentarily coming out of the trance she'd fallen into.  
  
"Well, if we send you guys home, it'd be nice to know how to get out of here."  
  
Jade's eyes opened wide. "You mean we can go home right now?"  
  
"That's the idea."  
  
Jade's smile stretched from ear to ear before she turned back to the unconscious man. "Ah, just two of them, and this guy thinks they're both covered by cameras. One is the garbage chute, and the other is the delivery ramp, in the back. It's a big set of doors that they can move bigger things through."  
  
Duo glanced at Quatre, who shook his head. "Security shouldn't be a problem, for us."  
  
"Then the delivery ramp it is! Anything else you think we should know?" he asked Jade.   
  
"Ah, I don't think so, no, no, no," she muttered to herself. "Oh! There's a fire escape off of this floor, too, if you need it." She removed her hand. "So can we go now?"  
  
"Sounds like a plan," Duo said cheerfully, pulling a gun out of the back of his pants. "Now where exactly are they keeping that machine?"  
  
:Where did he get that?: Adam asked.  
  
:We took them back to their safe house before we came here,: Ami told him. :And we neatened everything up again at the Ship, just in case. The note is still there.:  
  
:Good.: If there ever were any Tomorrow People on this world, the things they'd left might make their lives a little easier. God knew he'd have given just about anything for a warm blanket when he first arrived.  
  
Jade finished telling the pilots where she'd seen the machine, and then they cautiously opened the door and looked out. Apparently they didn't see anything, because they slowly crept out into the hall. After a few seconds Quatre gestured for them to come out into the hall, leaving the two unconscious bodies behind. The hall was empty, with the pilots spread out along the wall. They swiftly moved down the hall until they came to the door that Jade had seen in the man's mind. "It's an electronic lock," Duo muttered. "Did any of them have a key-card on them?"  
  
"I got it," Megabyte said, placing his hand over the lock. His brow furrowed with concentration, and after a few seconds a green light flashed and the door swung open.   
  
"That could be a really useful skill." Duo commented.   
  
"Only if you want to be a thief, and somehow I don't think my father would approve of that career choice," Megabyte muttered, but he looked inordinately pleased with himself. They all stepped inside and Megabyte propped the door open with a garbage can.   
  
The machine was sitting in the middle of the otherwise empty room, and Quatre immediately moved to the controls. "This will only take a few seconds," he assured them, his hands flying across the keyboard. Everyone except Heero watched him - Heero was staring out the crack in the door, holding his gun ready. Adam averted his eyes from the killing device, but for once he wasn't that upset to see one.   
  
"All set!" Quatre cried triumphantly.   
  
"Really?" Ami asked nervously. "All you have to do is turn it on?"  
  
"Yes, but you're going to have to teleport back to your own world yourself."  
  
Ami nodded. "Thank you for all your help."  
  
Adam looked at Duo, who was looking almost as pleased as Megabyte had, but couldn't help but notice that Duo's grin faltered slightly when he looked at him. I've hurt his feelings, he thought, and then almost laughed at himself. Who would have thought, a week ago, that he would be worried about the feelings of a terrorist?  
  
Adam quickly crossed the few feet that separated them and held out his hand. Duo stared at him, a startled expression on his face. "Are you sure you want to do that?" he asked, looking at Adam's hand.  
  
"I am. Actually, it would be an honor."  
  
"An honor, huh?" Duo asked with a grin, then clasped his hand. Adam did his best not to stiffen up as a barrage of images assaulted his mind, many of them dark and frightening. But it wasn't Duo's fault that bad things had happened to him when he was younger, no more than it was Adam's fault that people were always trying to use the Tomorrow People to their own advantage. He pushed slightly, and smiled at the person he found beneath all that darkness, a warm soul who'd risked his own life to help them, strangers who wouldn't even touch him.   
  
"Definitely. Thank you for everything you've done."  
  
"No problem. And thanks for taking care of my arm."  
  
Adam let his smile broaden and released Duo's hand, breathing a silent sigh of relief as he did so. "Are we ready?" he asked the others.   
  
"Let's link," Ami suggested. "Just to make sure we all go together." Adam had a feeling that her suggestion had less to do with sticking together and more to do with her concern about his exhaustion, but chose not to comment. Instead, he held up his hands. Megabyte stood to his left and Jade to his right, with Ami right across the circle. Quatre flipped a switch on the machine as the ball of light formed, and Adam felt that peculiar buzzing he'd felt a week and a whole world ago.   
  
:Concentrate on our ship,: he urged, not wanting to get sent to an alternate parallel universe. :Remember, the chess game, and Jade's books... Got the picture?:  
  
:Got it,: the others chorused.   
  
:Go!: he instructed, and they teleported.   
  
Now that he was looking for it, Adam noticed that this teleport did seem a bit longer than usual ones. When he once again felt solid ground under his feet, he was almost afraid to open his eyes, to find that they were in another unfamiliar place.   
  
"Yippeee!" Jade shouted, apparently having no such problems. He opened his eyes in time to see Jade scoop all of her books into her bag and sling it on her back. "I've got to get home, my mum will be worried sick! I'll talk to you later," she called, and disappeared.  
  
"Yeah, I'd better get going, too," Megabyte said quickly, grabbing his coat from where he'd dropped it a week ago. "Dad's got to be going nuts. He's probably got every one of his men out looking for us."  
  
"Tell him I'll stop by to talk later," Adam told him. General Damon liked to keep updated on all Tomorrow People business. Actually, he'd probably want to hear this even if it hadn't involved his son. He'd get a first-hand account from his son, but he usually liked to talk to Adam as well.  
  
"No problem," Megabyte said, and disappeared.  
  
"I'd better get back too," Ami said quietly. "My mum will be frantic." She grimaced.   
  
"What are you thinking?" he asked with a smile, although the thought of Mrs. Jackson's reaction also made him grimace. He'd be giving Ami's residence a wide berth for some time.  
  
"I was wondering whether or not I should tell her that you got shot protecting me," she said with a nervous laugh. "I think she'd appreciate you trying to take care of me, but I don't think I want her to know that we were in a situation where people were shooting at us."  
  
"Sounds like you have a real problem there," Adam said with a light laugh. "Why don't you get going? I'm sure you'll figure out something. Explaining it to her can't possibly be worse than terrorists, corrupt governments, and giant robots."  
  
Ami winced. "I think those are parts of the story that will also be left out. Adam, promise me you won't stay here by yourself tonight? I know you usually do... but I don't think that you should be alone tonight, if for no other reason than because of the drugs. We don't know if they're entirely out of your system yet."  
  
He started to shake his head, but she became insistent. "I'm serious, Adam! You can even stay at my house! We'll have to sneak you past my mum, but..."  
  
"That won't be necessary. I'm sure the Damons will let me stay with them if I ask, and I am going out there to talk to the General anyway. Alright?"  
  
"Alright. Talk to you tomorrow." Ami also vanished, leaving him alone.  
  
------------------------------------  
  
In London, Jade suddenly appeared in her living room. "Mum?" she called, heading for the kitchen, and heard something crash.   
  
"Jade?" came a hesitant call, and then her mom appeared in the doorway.  
  
"Mommy!" Jade shrieked, and cast herself into her mother's arms.  
  
------------------------------------  
  
An ocean away, Megabyte appeared in his father's office, not caring if his father was meeting with someone who didn't know about the Tomorrow People. Luckily, he wasn't. "Dad!" Megabyte shouted, and his father practically flew out of his chair to embrace him.  
  
"Oh thank God you're all right!" he exclaimed. "I've been looking all over the world for you guys! Where have you been?"  
  
------------------------------------  
  
Ami teleported in to her living room, and heard a gasp from behind her. She spun around just in time for her mother to almost knock all of the breath out of her with a fierce hug. "Oh, Ami! I was so worried about you! I called Mr. Damon, and he said he didn't know where any of you were..."  
  
She took a step back, putting her daughter at arm's length. "This was because of the Tomorrow People again, wasn't it?" she asked sharply.   
  
"Yes, but it wasn't their fault," Ami protested, and started to go into her explanation.  
  
------------------------------------  
  
Adam sat by himself in the Ship, a piece of paper in front of him. He was trying to write down all of the major events of their adventure. Not because he was afraid of forgetting - even if he hadn't had a virtually perfect memory, he'd be hard-pressed to forget that - but because writing these things down helped him to organize his thoughts, and he wanted it all straight in his head before he went to see Megabyte's father.   
  
But he was having trouble concentrating because of a fear that had been lurking in the back of his mind for days. Now that they were finally out of immediate danger, he could think about it, and he didn't really want to.   
  
The Ship, perhaps sensing his mood, lit up the column and moaned a question at him.   
  
"No, I'm fine, just thinking," he said out loud, putting one hand on the column before he teleported himself to the surface. He couldn't pinpoint the exact time when he started to talk out loud to the Ship, instead of just ignoring it or using mental communication. Megabyte would say that it was a sign that he had to get out more often, and he might be right, but it was soothing to hear something that sounded human every now and then.   
  
Once he was on the surface, he started walking along the edge of the beech, just where the water met the sand, dancing out of the way every now and then to avoid getting his wet.  
  
When they'd gone to the other world, they'd known for sure that it was a different time - what he was worried about was that he wasn't sure that it had been another world altogether. What if it was really the future of this world? They'd assumed that it wasn't because the island showed no signs of their presence, and the Ship didn't recognize them. But both of those could be explained away. The Ship could have been damaged in an earthquake - it had happened before, and could happen again, and that was why it didn't remember them, not because they were in a completely different Ship. And as for the island... a lot could happen in two hundred years to cover up the signs of human habitation.  
  
What he was really worried about was that the only way that they would let that happen to the island is if they were all dead. And that was what his basic fear was - that that would be their future, because he failed to protect them. Someone would find out about them, and they wouldn't be able to stop them. And the Tomorrow People would be eradicated, so that there wouldn't be any sign that they'd ever existed.  
  
Most of this was just paranoia, born of his own deepest fears, but he couldn't help but wonder even if that really was another world, if his own had a similar future... two hundred years of war, and situations that created the Gundam pilots... no one should have to live through what he'd seen in Duo's mind. Was that what their future would be like?  
  
Not if he had anything to say about it, nor any of the other Tomorrow People, he finally decided. And they did have allies here - people who were willing to fight for the same future, when the Tomorrow People couldn't. The thought was reassuring, and he found that he wasn't as resistant to the idea of people fighting for him as he used to be. Maybe something good had come out of that entire mess.  
  
And with that thought in his mind, he headed back to the ship to finish his work before he went to visit Megabyte.  
  
--------------------------------------  
  
Several hours after they sent the Tomorrow People home (he hoped), Duo found himself on a plane next to Quatre, flying back to the states. It seemed ridiculous that a couple of Gundam pilots would have to resort to commuter class flights to get back to their weapons, but that was the situation they found themselves in. They'd broken up into three groups to go back to the safe house, where they'd probably split up to complete their own separate missions again. Quatre had volunteered to make up a story about Oz accidentally destroying the machine during transport. The disappearance of the Tomorrow People they'd leave alone, and just tell the scientists that they couldn't find them.  
  
By all rights, Duo should have gone with Heero, since the two of them were partnered more often then Duo and Quatre, but Duo was in some desperate need of conversation, and if he wanted anything more than stoney silences, the occasional grunt, and (if he really irritated Heero) a 'baka', that meant that he had to go with Quatre. So that was how he found himself sitting in an uncomfortably small seat (even for him - he hated to think what it was like for adults), trying not to figit too much.  
  
Finally he asked, "Do you think they made it home? I mean, we'll never really know for sure, will we? They could have just been sent somewhere else." The question had been eating at him ever since the Tomorrow People vanished.  
  
"They made it home," Quatre said eyes half-closed. He sounded very certain.  
  
"How do you know?" Duo had to ask.   
  
"I can feel it," Quatre said with a slight smile. "They made it home. They're very happy. We did the right thing in helping them."  
  
"Really? You can feel them even on another world?"  
  
"It was strongest right after they left - it's almost completely faded now, but I could," Quatre replied calmly, the smile not leaving his face.  
  
Duo grinned at him and leaned back in his chair. After a few minutes, he asked, "Quatre? Are you jealous of them?"  
  
"Because they can't kill? A little, maybe. I hate killing - it's so unnecessary, or it should be. And I don't ever want to get to the point where it doesn't bother me - but I don't think I'd want to be in their shoes. You saw how much it hurt them when they weren't able to protect the ones they loved. I don't ever want to be in that position, helpless."  
  
Duo nodded - he'd hate to be helpless, for any reason. Althought they'd done pretty well for themselves, under the circumstances. "Quatre? You ever feel jealous about their world?"  
  
Quatre turned to stare at him. "What?"   
  
"I mean, think about it. Eventually there are going to be more of them, right? A lot more?" They'd discussed this with Ami when they were sitting around on the island with nothing to do. "So eventually there are going to be thousands, maybe millions of them running around, not able to hurt anyone, maybe even able to heal people, if they're like Adam," Duo said, flexing his arm. He couldn't believe that it was completely healed, but there wasn't even a mark to show he'd been shot.   
  
"That's true. Why should we be jealous?"  
  
"Well, everything that we're fighting for... eventually they know they're going to get it. It may take a hundred years, but their world is headed for peace, eventually. We don't know that we'll ever reach it."  
  
Quatre was silent for a minute. "Just because we'll have to work harder for it doesn't mean that it isn't possible. And they've got a long, hard road ahead of them, as well."  
  
"I know that!" Duo exclaimed. He thought about it for a minute more. "Quat, do you think that there will ever be Tomorrow People here?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Duo wasn't quite prepared for the solid assent. "You do?"  
  
"Well, there is a ship here, just like the one on their world," Quatre pointed out. "They said it was waiting for them, so the one here must be waiting for someone, too. They'll show up, eventually."  
  
"You're right, I didn't think of that," Duo said, leaning back once more. He grinned. "Cool."  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
Half a world away, just off the coast of a tiny island in the Pacific Ocean, there was a flash of light and a splash.  
  
  
  
  
The End 


End file.
